Category Archives: Performance

Do You Know What Your Employees Are Doing Tonight?

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I love Fast Company – if I could only read one magazine ever – it would be FC.  If I could read two – I would re-read Fast Company.  Article for article the best publication on the market. (Editor note: Fast Company, please send the check care of The Tim Sackett Project)

Recently, FC had an article about the expectations you put on your employees, after hours: “It’s 10 pm, Do you know where your employees are? 4 Steps to set after-hour “work” expectations.” From the article:

“Leaders fail to clarify their personal preferences for staying connected to work with technology, and don’t share their expectations of the responsiveness with their direct reports. This leads to misguided assumptions that can wreak havoc on the work/life balance of their employees. And most leaders have no idea any of this is happening.”

There advice:

1. Recognize that you have to initiate the conversation with your direct reports.

2. Decide what you really expect in terms of response and connection.

3. Have a meeting, state the parameters clearly, and then be consistent.

4. Finally, keep the lines of communication open and encourage ongoing clarification.

So, what is the big dilemma about setting after-hour work expectations?  It invades upon our personal life, right!?  Wrong!  Here’s the deal – if you want work-life balance, you need to have balance both ways. That means, taking a phone call from the boss or the client at 9pm on a Wednesday, or finishing a project on Saturday afternoon, etc. But you should also be able to negotiate what “normally” will look like (knowing we all have exceptions that will crop up from time to time).

Here’s are the expectations I’ve set with my team:

1. If you are a Director or above:

A. If I call you after-hours, you pick up the phone – or call back within 10-15 minutes – or I read that you’re dead in the morning paper. (I rarely call my direct reports after-hours, so if I do, it’s important, you can step out of your son’s basketball game for 5 minutes and take my call)

B. I don’t make you work nights or weekends – but if you have to for some reason – don’t tell me you did it, like you just cured cancer – you didn’t, you did your job.

C. Let me when a client is upset, no matter what time it is, if I’m on vacation, if I’m at a funeral, my son’s wedding, meeting with Obama – I need to know – now!

2. Managers:

A. If I call you after-hours, you pick up the phone – or call back within 10-15 minutes – or I read that you’re dead in the morning paper. (see the trend yet?)

B. If recruiters are always staying later than you are staying – eventually I’ll pick one of them to be manager.  You don’t have to stay late every night, but don’t be the first out the door everyday.

3.  Recruiters:

A. If I call you after-hours, you pick up the phone – or call back within 10-15 minutes – or I read that you’re dead in the morning paper. (I think we are clear on this)

B. Unfortunately, recruiting isn’t a 9-to-5, Monday thru Friday job. Well, at least for recruiters who are actually good. Doesn’t matter if your agency or corporate – the best connect with talent on nights and weekends, especially to close deals.  There is an expectation you will do this.

It doesn’t have to be complicated.  Just be straightforward about it and set the proper expectations that “you” have – not organizational expectations – many times those don’t align – have enough self-insight to know what you need from your team – you’ll be happier, and they’ll be happier.

 

 

It’s Halftime America! Imported from the D

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Being in Michigan Chrysler’s last two Superbowl Ads have been big news in our part of the world (check out last year’s ad with Eminem- here).  In case you didn’t see the most recent one, starring Clint Eastwood – here it is:

Super cool right! Make you feel good about America.  If you’re from Michigan and/or Detroit – makes you feel good about that fact – which believe me isn’t an easy task, recently!   It is branding at it’s best.  No one actually likes Chrysler – well not if you’re from Michigan.  Chrysler is like the Big 3’s ugly redheaded step brother.  Honda, Toyota, Hyundai, etc. would be considered a better car buying option by most.  It’s arguable that Chrysler wouldn’t be in the top 7 car buying choices of the majority of Americans. Yet, with branding like this, they probably will be fairly soon!

The concept is almost perfect – classic American actor from a time gone by,  focus on a growing economy and jobs, America’s best known industry – Automotive, and an American city rising from the ashes – heck you don’t even know it’s a Chrysler commercial until the last 10 seconds!   It’s marketing the way it should be.  It’s not thrown in your face – look at our cars, looks at our cars, look at our cars…it connects with an emotion inside of you, a willingness to want to be a part of something bigger, pride in country, pride to be the best – then BAM – Chrysler.  The last connection – the hook – you’re going to go out and buy a Chrysler.  Don’t say you won’t – they already have your subconscious wired to buy.  There isn’t anything you can do at this point, you’re just an unwilling participant in something much bigger than yourself.

Does your employment brand invoke this type of emotion?  Probably not – let’s face it – this isn’t easy to do.  Millions of dollars were spent to get Chrysler to come up with this concept.  You don’t have millions – you have hundreds.  So, how can you get here?  Do the same thing using your own people.  Every company has those leaders and employees who have bought in – they wear the company logo jacket, have the company tattoo and are willing to get into an argument with a fellow employee is dares to bad mouth the company.  These are your brand messengers, these are your Clint Eastwoods.  Let them sell your company.  Get your iPhone – shoot a video – put it up on your employment page of your website (just ask the 22 year old kid in IT, he’ll know how to do it).

It’s hard for HR folks because we always want to control the message. We want to clean it up and make it perfect.  Stop that. It’s alright if it’s a bit dirty, a bit unpolished.  It’s alright that the person might use some language or words you wouldn’t use – this is you – your company – your brand.  Embrace it and others will to.

I’m proud to be from Michigan, and I’m proud of The D (Detroit for all you non-Michiganders) – thanks Chrysler for helping remind us of this.  I probably won’t buy your cars, but many will and you did good regardless.

Are You Really Giving 100% – SuperBowl Edition

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I’m not a fan of the Dallas Cowboys but they have a number of quotes inside their locker room used to motivate their players.  One of those quotes has stuck with me:

“Don’t Confuse Routine, with Commitment”

If you’ve been around sports long enough, you realize the truth to these words.  It is so easy to get caught up in our “routines” that we begin believing this is “commitment”.  You begin to hear things like:

“I come to work everyday”

“I put in my time”

“I produced more than anyone else in my group last year “- (last week – yesterday – etc.)

“I work hard”

“I don’t complain”

You hear these things, right!?   And, for the most part, we have this filter that makes us believe that they are the right things to say, but the reality is we are confusing routine with commitment.

I have to tell you something – I’m probably not the best guy to work for.  Why?  I don’t give out many trophies for people that do what they were hired to do.  When you come to work in my barn, I expect that you are going to perform the job you were hired to perform.  That job takes hard work, you have to show up everyday and work, I don’t put up with complaining, and I expect you put in more than your time.  I rarely confuse routine with commitment.

We all have routines, but I don’t equate your routine with being committed to my organization or to your profession.  Commitment happens when you show your willingness to go beyond your routine on a regular basis.  I run a recruiting company – candidates aren’t always available between 8am and 5pm, Monday through Friday – Clients aren’t always available to talk to you between 8am and 5pm Monday through Friday – mostly they are – but not always.  So to be a committed recruiter or sales professional in my organization you will have to make connections with people at odd times, on odd days – it might even require you to take a call or have an appointment on the weekend.  Like many other occupations and organizations, I’m sure.

So, how do I know if someone is committed – I don’t hear about it.  I don’t hear they had a call on Saturday or they interviewed someone on Sunday evening.  I don’t hear about how it took away from their personal life to take a client to a ball game on Saturday.  Commitment is quiet.  Commitment doesn’t have to boast or complain.  They did it because they knew it was the right thing to do for their career and for the organization.

If you show up to run pass routes in the off season, and you’ve done that every year since college – that’s a routine.  If you show up to run pass routes, and you invited and personally picked up 3 other teammates on the way to the field – that’s commitment.  Do let your employees confuse the to.

 

7 Secrets that only HR Pros know

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I was reading an article the other evening over at Huffington Post, Welcome to the Club: What only Moms know (Why was I reading this I hear some of my dude HR guy pros asking themselves? Let’s face it I’m 40ish and woman are still mostly a mystery to me, so I try and find out their secrets! Plus I hate being left in the dark on this parenting thing, so “I need the info” as Dr. Evil would say.)  I don’t want to spoil the article, but suffice to say, either I’m very in touch with the feminine side of parenting, or what they were sharing really wasn’t the “real” secrets Moms know!

The article did get me to thinking about secrets and how in HR we seem to always have a few that we are either ask to keep by others, or just the ones we share in this great fraternity of HR.  Here are some of the HR secrets that I thought of:

1. Who in the organization is on the way out.  (Sometimes many people know of individuals who are on the way out, but usually HR has a good pulse on everyone)

2. Who in the organization is probably on the way up, and not because they deserve it. (Every leader has an attraction to an employee or two, for a number of reasons, and those folks usually find their way into roles that they don’t deserve.)

3. How much money you’ll get on your next raise.  (Oh, yes we do. But keep working hard anyway, we don’t want it to seem like it’s predetermined)

4. The information of why certain departments tend to get more (resources, staff, etc.) than others – but we can’t you – it would cause organizational chaos!  (I hate to tell you this, but it usually has nothing to do with department performance and everything to do with you department leader – or should I say lack there of)

5. What you’re going to get for your annual bonus – usually 6-12 months before you get it. (hey, this stuff has to be budgeted)

6. What changes will happen to your benefits – again – usually 4-8 months before it hits you.

7. Who in your company is most likely to go postal on you.  (But we can’t tell you for HIPAA reasons – sorry – but if you sit next to Ted you might want to invest in a bullet proof vest)

I’m sure there are a number of others, but many aren’t unique to just HR.  I was thinking of putting down: We cook the books on our metrics, but guess what? So does every other department!  Let’s face it, in a political corporate structure that relies on metrics to obtain budgeted resources – the numbers aren’t always going to be clean!  I like HR because we tend to have “big” secrets and are called upon to keep those secrets.  It’s probably the biggest failure I see with new HR pros – they tend to try and create organizational friendships by sharing “the secrets” -and it always ends up blowing up on them.

HR has secrets – you knew it, I confirmed it for you.  Now let’s move on – because I not telling you the specifics! (besides the Ted thing)

Employee Communication 101 – Tebow Style

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I need to catch up on my HR/Sports related posts!  My teammates over at the 8 Man Rotation are probably feeling like I’m not pulling my weight lately, and what better way to get back in their good graces but to throw out a Tebow post!

So, the big news from John Elway over at the Denver Bronco’s camp is that Tim Tebow has earned the right to be called the starting quarterback going into next season’s Training Camp.  Basically, that means that during off-season conditioning Mr. Elway is not going to allow any other quarterback to beat out Tebow – Oh! Thanks for the vote of confidence Mr. Elway! I’m not surprised by Elway’s announcement.  What I’m surprised about, and probably shouldn’t be, was by Tim Tebow’s response:

“Nice,” Tebow said of Elway’s pledge of support. “It’s a great honor to be a quarterback for the Denver Broncos. I take that very seriously. I’m very excited about this offseason and I can’t wait to get to work and get better.”

He couldn’t have been coached better by a team of PR specialist to respond this way!

Look, Tebow gets that Elway’s endorsement, was really a partial non-endorsement – and he had a choice on how to react, and took the higher road.  He responded in the way we would like anyone of our employees to respond when put in a similar situation, and believe me, we put our employees in these situations!   We constantly have hiring managers deliver performance and succession messages to employees that sound very similar to what Elway gave Tebow:

“Mary, keep doing what you’re doing and good things will happen.”

“Bob, you control what you can control and it will all work out.”

“Gayle, with hard work, you can go as far as you want in this organization.”

“Ray, the only person who is going to stop you, is you.”

This is the classic performance management response/non-response – and we allow this to happen to often – but more amazingly than how much we allow this to happen, is how upset we get with our employees when they become frustrated with this non-feedback, and don’t give us a “Tebow” response!

Tebow is a winner in life because he understands the art of communication.  He understands that, while he has a huge platform on which to speak, using it as a weapon will get neither himself or his organization any closer to their final goal.  Elway screwed up – he should have been honest – “We’ll give Tim every opportunity to compete to be the starting QB of the Denver Bronco’s next season.  We will work this off-season with Tim to make him the best possible QB for our ororganization.” Period. Shut up, no further questions.  Tim showed the organization how to communicate – be humble, be appreciative and be gracious – you will come out a winner every single time!

Want Change? Hire Pirates!

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Dollars for donuts, Fast Company is the best publication out their for anyone in the business world!  They hit a home run in my book recently with the article: An HR Lesson from Steve Jobs – If you want Change Agents, Hire Pirates!  “Why? Because Pirates can operate when rules and safety nets breakdown.”  More from the article:

A pirate can function without a bureaucracy. Pirates support one another and support their leader in the accomplishment of a goal. A pirate can stay creative and on task in a difficult or hostile environment. A pirate can act independently and take intelligent risks, but always within the scope of the greater vision and the needs of the greater team.

Pirates are more likely to embrace change and challenge convention. “Being aggressive, egocentric, or antisocial makes it easier to ponder ideas in solitude or challenge convention,” says Dean Keith Simonton, a University of California psychology professor and an expert on creativity. “Meanwhile, resistance to change or a willingness to give up easily can derail new initiatives.” So Steve’s message was: if you’re bright, but you prefer the size and structure and traditions of the navy, go join IBM. If you’re bright and think different and are willing to go for it as part of a special, unified, and unconventional team, become a pirate.

The article is an excerpt from Steve Jobs book: What Would Steve Jobs Do?: How the Steve Jobs Way Can Inspire Anyone to Think Differently and Win by Peter Sander, and it goes into some of the hiring philosophy that Jobs had while he was at Apple.

So, what did Jobs Pirates have to have:

1. It’s not enough to be brilliant and think differently- a Pirate has to have the passion, drive and vision to deliver to the customer a game-changing product.

2. Will the person you hire, fall in love with your organization and products?

3. A Pirate is a traveler who comes to you with diverse background and experiences.

4. Even though they’re a Pirate they still have to fit into the team and come with or be able to make connections.

“So, in Steve’s book–recruit a team of diverse, well-traveled, and highly skilled pirates, and they’ll follow you anywhere.”

Burning Down Your HR Department

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A couple of years ago my parents house burned down.  They were away on vacation and lighting struck the roof. Before the fire department could get there and put it out, most of the house was destroyed.  60+ years of memories and possessions, gone.   In hindsight, it was a bit of a blessing,  there house was at the age where everything was starting to need replacing, and my father was at the age, where he wanted to retire.  Those two things don’t go well together!  Major home improvements equals major expense, and a fixed income.  So, long-story-short, mother nature, and the insurance company, gave my folks a new house for a retirement gift!  All is well that ends well, I guess.

This situation, though, led to some deep emotional conversations about what the wish they could have pulled out, if they new this was going to happen.  As you can imagine it was all the stuff you and I would want – our photos, our mementos, some favorite things that remind us of loved ones, or things that we were proud of.  I thought about his recently when having a conversation with a friend who just started a new position as the head of a large HR shop.  His comment to me was:

“What I really need to do is burn this place down and start over!”

To which I replied, “well, isn’t there anything you would keep?”  Bam!  That is what he needed – he did need to burn it down, but there were definitely some things he needed to take out before lighting the match.

It’s a common practice that Leaders tend to do when taking on a new position – we tend to burn down our departments.  Oh, we say we won’t, as we go around throwing gasoline on everything, and we say we aren’t rebuilding as strap our tool belt on and start hammering away, but the truth is, most leaders want to remake their new departments into what they want, not what it was.

So, I’ll ask you to take a few moments today and think about the concept of burning down your HR department.  What would you pull out and save?  What would you happily allow to burn up?  What would you miss?

Everyday we owe it to our organizations to get better.  You don’t have to burn down the department to get better – but you do need to get rid of those things you know you would easily allow to burn up!

Wanting More, For Someone Else

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You know what?  Being a HR Pro isn’t tough, being a Dad/parent is tough!  But, sometimes they seem to be very similar jobs.

I was reminded this weekend that many times in life, you want more for your kids/employees, than they might want for themselves.  We run into that frequently as HR Pros – you sit through 100’s if not 1000’s, performance management reviews, and in many of those, the conversation is centered around asking the employee -“Well, what do you want out of your career?”  The smart ones usually tell you what you want to here, the not-so-smart ones will tell you something totally off the wall – but either way, you end up feeling like you’re doing the parenting!

This weekend I was taught a lesson that I’ve taught many people in my career.  The usual scenario is me sitting with an executive or hiring manager, explaining to them – there is nothing we can do to change this employee, if they are not willing to change this for themselves first.  Seems simple, right!?  We can offer the best tools, the best teachers and mentors, send them away to great conferences – and nothing happens, it’s the same old employee that we had before.  We (HR, leadership, etc.) keep trying to change the individual, but the individual hasn’t decided, yet, that they are willing to change – in a nut shell – this is Performance Management – and there is a ton of performance management in Parenting!

For me, this is about wanting to turn one of my sons into something they are either not, or are not yet ready to become.  I can yell and push and plead and do everything my Dad probably did to me – but if he hasn’t made up his mind to change, it’s just not going to happen.  It’s funny how we all teach and train things that we haven’t really experienced or understand.  It’s in our DNA to want more for those we care about most. If you are a great leader/HR Pro and you care about your employees, you innately want them to reach their highest potential – it’s a natural feeling.  The hardest part is getting to the point where you understand that no matter how much you want your employee to change for the better – they have to want to change, first, before any step forward will take place.  The hardest thing to do as a leader/parent is to wait for this to happen.

So, don’t stop giving them the opportunity – because you don’t know when the light will come on, when the desire to change will take over – it could happen at any time.  We set the table, we invite them to eat – then they either come and eat or they don’t.  The next day, we set the table again – and again – and again.  One of my favorite quotes of all time comes from Leo Buscaglia (who is a wonderful writer and teacher), Leo says: “We don’t love to be love in return, we love to love.”   As HR Pros/Leaders/Parents – I think Leo has it right – we don’t try and make those we care about better, for something we are going to get in return, we try and make them better (and continue to try) for the simple reason, it’s the right thing to do.  

The hard part is we know, we see the potential – usually because, we didn’t reach that potential ourselves, and through that experience, we want to make sure others don’t miss their opportunity.  So, we will head back to the gym, a little smarter, a little wiser and, yeah, I’ll probably still yell a little too much…

Life Lessons and Riding the School Bus

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I read a very funny quote today from a comedian, Jenny Johnson, which she said

“If you rode the school bus as a kid, your parents hated you.”

It made me laugh out loud, for two reasons: 1. I rode the bus or walked or had to arrive at school an hour early because that was when my Dad was leaving and if I wanted a ride that was going to be it.  Nothing like sitting at school talking to the janitor because he was the only other person to arrive an hour before school started.  Luckily for me, he was nice enough to open the doors and not make me stand outside in the cold.  Lucky for my parents he wasn’t a pedophile! 2. My kids now make my wife and I feel like we must be the worst parents in the world in those rare occasions that they have to ride the bus.  I know I’m doing a disservice to my sons by giving them this ride – but I can’t stop it, it’s some American ideal that gets stuck in my head about making my kids life better than my life, and somehow I’ve justified that by giving them a ride to school their life is better than mine!

When I look back it, riding the bus did suck – you usually had to deal with those kids who parents truly did hate them.  Every bully in the world rode the bus – let’s face it their parents weren’t giving them a ride, so you had to deal with that (me being small and red-headed probably had to deal with it more than most).  You also got to learn most of life lessons on the bus – you found out about Santa before everyone else, you found out how babies got made before everyone else, you found out about that innocent kid stuff that makes kids, kids before you probably should have.  But let’s face it, the bus kids were tough – you had to get up earlier, stand out in the cold, get home later and take a beating after the ride home, just so you had something to look forward to the next day!

You know as HR Pros we tend also not to let our employees “ride the bus”.   We always look for an easier way for them to do their work, to balance their work and home, to do as little as possible to get the job done.  In a way, too many of us, are turning our organizations and our employees into the kids who had their Mom’s pick them up from school.  I’m not saying go be hard on your employees – but as a profession we might be better off to be a little less concerned with how comfortable everyone is, and a little more concerned with how well everybody is performing.

Too many HR Pros (and HR shops for that matter) tend to act as “parents” to the employees, not letting them learn from their mistakes, but trying to preempt every mistake before it’s made – either through extensive processes or overly done performance management systems.  We justify this by saying we are just “protecting” our organizations – but in the end we aren’t really making our employees or organizations “tougher” or preparing them to handle the hard times we all must face professionally.  It’ll be alright – they might not like it 100%, but in the end they’ll be better for it.