Category Archives: Performance

Employee Retention is Easy

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What is the one thing that employees hate more than anything else?

Change.

Bar none – ‘change’ would rank as the most disliked thing that a company can do to employees.  I know, I know – all of you reading this are really progressive – you ‘love’ change, you embrace ‘change’, you’re ‘change’ advocates.  Yeah, right.  The people who say they ’embrace’ change are the same folks who go into a deep depression when their favorite TV show is cancelled.  Change for most people sucks.  People like what they know.  They like knowing that they’ll stop at the same place each morning to pick up their morning coffee and Joe behind the counter will know they like it with low fat milk and one sugar.  They like knowing that the doctor they’ve gone to since they started with you right out of college, is in your insurance plan, and they can keep going to that doctor.  They like knowing that their check will always be deposited into their bank account on the first and third Friday of each month. No. Matter. What.

That is the secret of Employee Retention.

People – your employees – don’t actually want to leave your employment.  Starting a new job, in a new location, working a new boss, etc. – Sucks!  It’s major change!  Your employees actually want to stay with you – they just don’t want their job and the company to suck.  So – you Change!  And change causes them to what?  Ugh…this is hard.

So, how do you keep your employees, without changing?

Most change fails because of the communication.  This is especially true in so many HR shops – we tend to over communicate and over complicate minor changes, with major communications!   We are implementing a new payroll system that will save us time and money, but in doing so checks will now be deposited on the second and fourth Friday of each month.  OMG!  Our employees are going to freak out – they are use to the first and third Friday!  This. Is. A. Major. Change.  We need a committee.  We need posters and wallet cards.  We need changes to our policies.  We need to have a six month transition period – where we will communicate this over and over.  We need…Stop.

What you need is a simple message out to the troops.  Hey all – payroll is getting a great new system.  We’ll have less errors, save the company a bunch of money.  We’re happy we could get them some really good technology for their function.  Checks will now come out on the second and fourth Friday of each month. Plan accordingly.  Let your supervisor know if you need some help in this transition. This will go live next pay period.  Bam!

People don’t like change.  So, don’t maximize change that doesn’t need to be maximized!   If you only communicated truly “Big” change and it “Big” change happens rarely – it doesn’t seem like change is happening all the time.  Your employees WANT to stay with you.  They HATE change.  Stop making them feel like change is happening all the time – just so you feel like you have some IMPORTANT to do.

Employee Retention is Easy, simply because deep down, your employees really don’t want to leave.

 

 

Lawyer-Up

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Years from now when I retire and look back on my career in HR I think I’m only going to be surprised about one thing.  It won’t be how crazy some employees can be, or dumb things supervisors have said to employees or even the shocking employee relations issues I’ve dealt with.  The one thing will be how totally comfortable I’ve become in dealing with lawsuits and potential lawsuits!   If you really thing about it, most people in the world are not comfortable with lawyers.  Just as HR Pros are looked at like the Grim Reaper in many organizations – no one wants to see the lawyer’s number pop up on their caller ID!  Combine the Lawyer and HR Pro together and you have most employees worst nightmare.

I’ve gotten to the point now in my career where I actually try and beat employees to the punch.  Here’s how it normally goes: Employee is either being terminated, or had a boss be a little too touchy or somehow slipped in the parking lot on a dry sunny day and HR gets a call/visit that sounds something like this:

Employee: “Yeah, well, ‘we’ve’ got a problem!”

HR Pro: “Really!? What problem do ‘we’ have?”

Employee: “Jill took my stapler and told me my ‘Boo’ is sleeping with Mary.”

HR Pro: “And…”

Employee: “And!  And that’s stealing and I’m working in a ‘hospitable’ work environment!”

HR Pro: “Hostile.”

Employee: “I’m not being “Hostile”! Oh, you’re against me to – I see how this is. I know my rights! I don’t want to have to get ‘others’ involved but I will.”

HR Pro: “Others. Oh, you mean a lawyer?” (I like to act like I’m surprised and that thought had never come to me that they might go this direction.) “Tell you what – I think you’re right on.  Have your lawyer contact me immediately so we can start working through some of these details, like how another employee stole your work issued stapler and how your “boo” is sleeping with Mary.”

That usually ends the conversation right there.

The fastest way to get an employee off ‘Lawyering-Up’ is to push them to ‘Lawyer-Up’.  The reality is for HR Pros – either way – you will either need to Lawyer-Up or you don’t, depending on the details.As an HR Pro I’ve become very comfortable with this issue.  I think about 100% of the time when  I hear from an employee that they are “going to call their attorney”, I try and tell them that is a really good idea.  I encourage them constantly to seek legal advice. Why? Because here’s another thing I’ve learned from being an HR Pro – the majority of attorneys will tell people to take a hike when they have nothing.  Honestly. We tend to think lawyers will sue for anything, but in most employment cases they won’t. 99 out of 100 times you have an employee seek legal advice – you’ll never hear from them again because some attorney will tell them – “You have no case.”  The one case you do hear from – is probably the one you already knew you had problems with already.

Yep – being told “I’m going to sue you”, who knew someone could ever hear those words and not feel nervous!? Only HR Pros and Lawyers.

 

Uncommon Trait of a Great Leader

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For those who don’t know – I had great seats for the MSU vs. Iowa basketball game last week (see pic above of me being an idiot on national TV – it was AWESOME!).  My company, HRU, does a bunch of IT business with MSU and we are big supporters (yep, I now have the infamous “donor” tag at MSU) of MSU athletics – heck, our corporate headquarters is about 2 miles from campus and roughly 1/2 of my staff are Sparty grads.  All those things being put together – I was offered a chance to travel with the MSU basketball team to the Iowa game and got a chance to sit behind the bench for the game.

So, what does this have to do with Leadership Traits?  This is probably where you’ll believe I’ll go on and on about how great MSU Head Coach Tom Izzo (he’s also the guy on the front page of this blog in the pic with me) is – because he is – but you’re wrong.  The leader I want to talk about is one of the team captains from MSU, Russel Byrd (only a sophomore).  Here’s a kid who barely plays.  Was a highly recruited kid out of high school, but still hasn’t found his shot at the college level.  I think most of Spartan Nation was stunned when he was named one of the Captains for the 2012-12013 team.  How does a kid who rarely plays, become Captain of the team?

The uncommon trait of a leader – not being the most skilled.

Normally, in most organizations, the people who ascend to leadership positions, tend to be the most skilled, or pretty close to the most skilled.  It is very rare that a person is selected who isn’t the most skilled.  Why?  Traditional thinking says how can you lead people who are better than you.  The reality is, and we know this in HR, having high skill in a function and having the ability to lead in that same function – really have zero correlation.   No doubt, many great leaders are also highly skilled, but not always.

Back to my Spartys!  What I came away with from my trip with MSU Basketball was that Russell Byrd is a natural leader.  I called him the mayor, the entire trip – I might be his biggest fan now! He never missed an opportunity to engage with those traveling with him – his teammates, his coaches, the team managers, us tag-along donors, the hotel staff, etc.  It might be a handshake, eye contact with a wink and a smile or putting his arm around you and joking around.  He was encouraging, always, he kept a positive attitude even when his own performance, that night, wasn’t what he would have wanted.  While not having a good game, he set his own feelings aside, to pick up those on his team, who were more skilled, who needed some picking up.  He put his team, before himself.

When you think about succession in your organization, I wonder how many of us really look at one’s ability to lead vs. how skilled they are.  I immediately assumed Russell Byrd would not make a good Captain for his team, based on his skill level.  I think too often, those responsible for hiring leaders, do the same thing.  We pass over many of our most influential employees and give the job to the best performer – who often struggle in that role.  I’m not saying Byrd is a great leader because he’s not the most skilled, I’m saying he’s a great leader in spite of not being the most skilled.

Great skill does not equal great leadership.  Great leadership comes from having an ability to connect with people.

 

 

 

 

 

HR Can Succeed By Doing Less

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You know Jim Collins – the ‘Good to Great’ guy?  He has another book to, it’s called How The Mighty Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In.  This isn’t a book review, or for that matter an endorsement of this book.  I will say, Jim brings up one very interesting concept in this book on why companies, organizations, departments, etc. – fail.  It’s something that we do constantly within HR, and most of us would never view it as something that would actually be hurting our organization.  We do too much!

This over-riding pursuit ‘to do more’ has some drastic consequences.

I will tell my HR brothers and sisters, if you never worked in a large HR/Talent shop – you might understand where I’m going with this.  That’s because small to medium sized HR shops usually are working their tails off just to keep their heads above water.  Large HR/Talent shops are a little like the game Monopoly. You’re either making yourself larger in some way or another, or you’re going through a ‘right-sizing’ so you can start over at making yourself larger again!  Within that mentality comes this ‘more’ cycle.

Most large HR shops don’t try to reduce their work because that goes against this empire building mindset.  They try and come up with more programs, more projects, more ways to measure, more ways to ensure an employee is engaged, more ways to check the checklist to ensure compliance, more ways to well, show that you’re doing more than the other guy/gal.  If you aren’t creating more, you’re aren’t valuable and showing your worth.  No one ever got promoted in HR for eliminating programs – the saying goes!

Here’s the other way to do HR that 90% of HR/Talent Pros don’t do:

1. Eliminate any HR program/project that doesn’t save employees time (not your HR department – but the time of the actual employee).  Remember that new Open Enrollment process you put in to eliminate all of that data entry by your department – but it now takes employees 25 minutes to sign up for benefits vs. 5 minutes – that 20 minutes times the number of employees just cost your company a ton of time – which means money in the real world.

2. Develop a talent management process that works for your hiring managers, not one that makes your feel good about yourself.  That 5 page annual review sure looks great – but it’s a pain in the ass of your hiring managers, and the reality is the employees aren’t getting in more feedback.  Stop that.

3. Stop designing processes around gaining 100% compliance and start designing processes so simple you’ll have 99% compliance (which is more than you should hope for).

Doing less HR is actually harder than doing more HR!  It seems like that should be the opposite, but it’s not.  Doing less means you have to really think strategically about what your function should be delivering and what it shouldn’t.  It means you move some things out of your department, that never should have been there in the first place, but “we’re in HR and we’re suppose to do whatever we can to help.”  No, you shouldn’t.  You’re in HR – you should deliver great HR that is simple and easy to understand.  For most HR/Talent Pros that I know – this concept of doing less goes against every bone in their body.  Great HR isn’t about doing more – it’s about doing the least amount possible to deliver the services that are needed for your organization to have great people.  That is really hard to do without adding more for people to do!

 

 

 

Which Best Practice is Ruining Your HR Shop?

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There is a brilliant article over at Harvard Business Review called: Which Best Practice is Ruining Your Business by Freek Vermeulen (I’m naming my next child “Freek” by the way!).  ‘Best Practices’ are a sore spot for me when I attend HR/Talent conferences.  No matter what the conference you’ll find some HR/Talent Pro talking about their “best practice” and God bless them you’ll see a standing room only audience of HR/Talent Pros trying to find out all about this “best practice’ to take back to their own shops.  Therein lies the problem.  From Vermeulen’s article:

“Most companies follow “best practices.” Often, these are practices that most firms in their line of business have been following for many years, leading people in the industry to assume that it is simply the best way of doing things. Or, as one senior executive declared to me when I queried one of his company’s practices: “everybody in our business does it this way, and everybody has always been doing it this way. If it wasn’t the best way of doing things, I am sure it would have disappeared by now”.
But, no matter how intuitively appealing this may sound, the assumption is wrong. Of course, well-intended managers think they are implementing best practices but, in fact, unknowingly, sometimes the practice does more harm than good.

One reason why a practice’s inefficiency may be difficult to spot is because when it came into existence, it was beneficial — like broadsheet newspapers once made sense. But when circumstances have changed and it has become inefficient, nobody remembers, and because everybody is now doing it, it is difficult to spot that doing it differently would in fact be better.”

Best practices aren’t new ideas, they are tried and true ideas, proven out over time to work well for the organization that started using them.  Theoretically, if you use another organizations ‘best practice’ the best thing you can hope for is that you’ll meet what they’ve accomplished.  I know a ton of business leaders that would kick you out of their office if you came to them saying “Hey! I’ve got an idea that will allow us to meet our competitors!”   Most leaders want ideas that will allow you to ‘beat’ your competitors, even when you’re trailing in the industry that you’re in.

I’m not saying that many HR/Talent shops can’t improve by using a best practice from another organization.  That actually might be true.  But, again, you’ll only improve, at best, to the level that other organization has achieved.  You’ll never be industry leading – you’ll be industry following.  I always assume when I hear a best practice that it was something that worked really well for that organization, at a specific time, and then ask – “what are you doing now?”  Almost always, I’ll get a response of something new they are actually working on – but it’s not, yet, a ‘best practice’ in their eyes!  That’s what I want to hear – the new stuff – not what they’ve been doing for 5 years!

For me, true innovation does not start at best practice – that is an ending point.  If you truly want to innovate and turn your HR Shop into World Class – you have to be a best practice creator, not a best practice follower.  I’d rather hear presentations at SHRM (or any other conference) about stuff people haven’t even tried yet – but they think it could be out of this world and why they think it would be great!  Then we both go back and try it, fix it, try it again, and compare notes.

So, which Best Practice is going to ruin your HR Shop this year?

The Secret to Happy Work

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We’ve all been sold a really harmful lie, by a lot of people.  That lie is:  To be truly happy at work, you must do what you love (or some variation of the same theme). It’s complete garbage that is usually told to you by – an ultra-rich people who can do anything they want, someone who really doesn’t have to earn a living because they have a spouse earning a living for them or someone who just flat out got lucky, right place-right time and does something they actually love.  I know, I know – “Tim, you create your own luck!” – said by the same idiot who’s wife is a brain surgeon and allows her deadbeat husband to be a “writer” at home.

Still most of us define our happiness like this:

Step 1 – Work really super hard.

Step 2 – Really super hard work will make you successful.

Step 3 – Being successful will make me happy.

I hate to break this to you – being successful will not make you happy.  It will allow you to buy a lot of stuff, you’ll probably have less money arguments and you might even feel good about your success, but if you’re not happy before all of that, there is a really good chance you won’t be happy after to gain success.

Let’s start with this concept:

Work Success ≠ Happiness

Have you ever met someone working a dead-end job, a just-not-going-anywhere type of job, but they are completely joyous?  I have.  I envy those people.  They do not define their happiness in life by the level of success they’ve obtained in their career. Their happiness is defined by a number of other things: are their basic needs met, do they enjoy the people they surround themselves with, do they have a positive outlook on life, etc.  These individuals do not allow the external world to impact their happiness.  Their happiness is derived from within.

In HR I’ve been forced to learn this, because I’ve had people try and sell me on that Engagement =’s Happiness – which is also a lie.  I’ve had incredibly engaged workers who are very unhappy people and very happy people who were not engaged.  I’ve found over time, I can do almost nothing to “make” someone be happier.  I’m an external factor to their life.  Don’t get me wrong – as a leader I can give praise and recognition, I can give merit and bonuses, etc. While that might have a short-term impact to ones happiness, it’s not truly lasting happiness that comes from within.

So, how can you help someone find their happiness?  I think we have to start realizing that you don’t have to ‘work’ at something you love, to have happiness at work.  Putting work into perspective of life is key. I like what I do a whole bunch – hell, I blog about it! But if I really thought about it, I don’t ‘love’ it.  I love my family.  I love floating on a lake on a warm summer day.  I love listening to my sons laugh in pure joy.  I find my happiness in many ways – only part of which I gain through my career. My secret to happy work is finding happiness in a number of aspects in my life.  That way if I’m having a bad day at work, or a bad day at home, I still have pockets of happiness I can adjust my focus to.

What is your secret to being happy at work?

Right-To-Work or Wrong-To-Work

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I have to say it’s been fun to have a front row seat in the Right-To-Work debate that raged on in Michigan this past week!  Even President Obama made an appearance in Michigan and was probably the only one to put this debate into it’s proper context – he said Right-To-Work legislation is not about economics, it’s about politics – and for once in his life he was right.  Unfortunately, he then spewed a bunch of union propaganda numbers and made it even more political – but hey, he’s a politician.  I have a bunch of thoughts on this that don’t really make one coherent post, so I’m just going to share those thoughts and we can take it from there:

– Unions are dying a slow death. 17% of Michigan’s workforce, 7% of the national workforce.  What does this say? It says companies get it more today than ever.  You have to treat your employees well and you have to compete for talent.  If you don’t get this – you won’t be a competitive company for long, because the best and brightest won’t work for you.

– Unions in Right-To-Work states, and really nationally, need to get back to getting their membership to understand their ‘true’ value.  In HR we have to do this constantly in our organizations.  Unions have forgotten this for decades!  They just kept collecting their monthly dues and assumed their membership got it!  They don’t.

– Somebody explain to me how it’s a bad thing for an employee to have the choice of not paying union dues, if they don’t think their union is giving them value.  I pay a stock broker to give me stock tips – I find value in his opinion, I pay for it.  If I found value in the service a union was giving me, I’d pay for it.  I spoke to 3 long term teachers who are members of the MEA this week – all 3 said they would not pay dues if given the option. All 3 said, and I quote: “My union does nothing for me.”

– Unions believe ‘branding’ = scaring their membership into believing they can’t live without them.

– Michigan citizens voted for a Republican governor, a Republican Senate and Republican House.  Those 3 functions voted exactly the way they were suppose to, by the citizens who voted them in.  There is nothing shocking about his at all.  If Michigan’s citizens didn’t want Right-To-Work legislation, and similar types of legislation, they would have voted differently. But they didn’t.  If you lived in Michigan during the recession you would probably understand why – it sucks to lead the nation in unemployment.

I’m an HR Pro, so in my career I’ve been on the opposite side of the table from unions -I’m management.  I don’t have a positive view of unions because I believe they don’t make my workforce better they make it weaker.  Everyone in a union is treated the same, which just pushes everyone to the middle. High performers have no reason to be high performers when they are treated the same as the weakest performer.  I’ve seen this and have dealt with it professionally.  Unions telling me I have to treat these two groups the same.  This does not create high performance, it creates worse performance. This is what I know.

Everyone needs a wake up call.  I think Michigan enacting Right-To-Work legislation is a wake up call to Unions to reinvent themselves.  To start to really think, “how do we show our membership we are adding value to their lives.”  It can’t just be about ‘protecting’ jobs.  They’ve protected jobs right out of this state. It has to be about creating opportunities for their membership – that is a 180 degree difference in philosophy from where they are at.  They need to find a way that employers are begging for their membership to come and work in their companies, because their membership is so highly performing and skilled.  Right now employers are running away from unions because the value equation of skills and dollars don’t match up.

A Performance Management Discussion in 30 seconds

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I know we are always looking for a quick fix, or a silver bullet, so here you go – pass this around to your hiring managers.  A 30 second performance management discussion they can have with any of their subordinates today:

Hiring Manager:

“Answer the following questions using one of two possible answers – “Yes” or “No”, you can only use each answer only once. So, that means you can’t answer “Yes” or “No” for both questions.

Question #1 – Are you capable of more?

Question #2 – Are you lying?”

Just give it a few seconds – you’re in HR, you’ll figure it out.

 

Everything You Ever Needed To Know About Compensation

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Let me start by saying I don’t really understand Comp Pros.  Seems like a lot of spreadsheets, market analysis, internal analysis, 48-72 hours of waiting, followed by me getting approval to offer the candidate less than what they originally asked for, followed by the hiring manager sending a nasty email to their line executive, followed by me getting approval from said Comp Pro to offer what I wanted to originally, followed by the hiring manager believing I have no idea what I’m doing. But what do I know…

If I ever get the chance to run a Compensation Department (please G*d never let this happen) I would concentrate on only one thing: which positions drive the largest percentage of revenue in my organization.  Now that is much harder than you think.  First, I’m sure you’re organization is like mine in that ‘every’ position is important…wait, I have to stop laughing…and as such, we really need to look at the whole.  No, I wouldn’t do that in my made up Compensation Department – I only want to look at the important people.  It’s not that I’m getting rid of anyone – Comp doesn’t do that – we leave that to the Generalist!  My focus is finding out who is the most important in driving revenue (thus profit) in our organization.  I need to know this because I need to ensure we are leading the market in compensation plans for those specific skills.  Why? Because I want to go out and give my HR/Talent team all the ammunition they need to hunt down the best possible revenue driving team for my organization that has ever been assembled by man, beast or robot.

Bam! – that is all you need to know about Compensation.

“Oh, but Tim you’re so naive! We need to pay all of our people fairly to drive the best productivity. We need to ensure we don’t have internal pay equity issues. We have to have proper bonus plan designs and executive pay structures. We need…” Shut it!  You know what happens when you lead any industry in revenue?  All that crap tends to take care of itself.  You know what happens when you’re chasing revenue in an industry?  All that crap becomes issues.

Ok, so I make one giant assumption – I assume if my organization can drive revenue, that we can also drive profit – that isn’t always the case – but it will be in my organization because I know how to performance manage the morons out who don’t get these two need to be on parallel paths.  My compensation philosophy is simple – over pay the people who drive my revenue, and make sure I always have the best revenue driving talent in the game, at all times.  Pay everyone else at the market rate – I don’t need racehorses in those roles, I need plow-horses.  Most organizations don’t have the guts to do this and it’s why most organizations are always struggling around budget time to determine where to cut.  I don’t want to cut, I want to grow, I want to take over the world – or, well, at least lead my industry.

It’s hard, but it’s fair

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I heard this quote recently, it was used by an old football coach to his players:

“It’s hard, but it’s fair.”

He wasn’t the first to use this and probably won’t be the last – but the line stuck with me because of how I don’t think many people in today’s age really think this way.  Many want to talk about what’s fair, few want to discuss the ‘hard’ part.  The football coach’s son described the meaning of what he feels the phrase means:

“It’s about sacrifice,” Toler Jr. said of the quote. “It means that that if you work hard that when it’s all said and done at the end of the day, it will be fair based on your body of work. It’s about putting in the time, making sure that you’re ready for the opportunity.”

I think we all think our parents are hard on us growing up.  I recall stories I tell to my own sons of my Dad waking me up on a Saturday morning at 7am, after I was out to late the night before, and ‘making’ me help him with something, like chopping wood or cleaning the garage out.  He didn’t really need my help, he was trying to teach me a lesson about choices.  If I chose to stay out late at night, it was going to suck getting up early to go to school.  He shared with me stories of his father doing the same thing – one night my Dad had gotten home late, so late, he didn’t even go to bed, just started a pot of coffee and waited for my grandfather to get up, figuring that was easier than getting a couple of hours of sleep and then hearing it from my grandfather the rest of the day.

As a HR Pro, we see this every day in our workforce.  There are some who work their tails off, not outwardly expecting anything additional, they’re just hard workers.  Others will put in the minimum, then expect a cookie. It’s a tough life lesson for those folks.  Most usually end up leaving your organization, believing they were treated unfairly, so they’ll go bounce around a few more times.  Eventually they’ll learn to put in the work, put in the time and more times than not, things work out pretty well.  Sometimes it won’t – so you go back to work even harder.  It’s been very rare in my 20 year HR career that I’ve truly seen a really hard worker get screwed over – very rare!  Do some idiots who don’t deserve a promotion or raise sometimes get it – yep, they sure do – but that doesn’t happen as much as you think.  The hard workers tend to get the better end of the deal almost always.

I hope I can teach my sons this lesson:  Life is going to be hard, but if you keep at it and put in the work, it’s going to be fair.  I think that is all we can really hope for.