Category Archives: Retention

Would You Pay A Candidate To Interview?

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Last week I got my ass handed to me for daring to consider that those who interview with a company, should pay for interview feedback.  Not just normal interview feedback, like thanks, but no thanks, but something really good and developmental.  Most people think that idea is bad.  Interview feedback should be free.  It’s not that I really want to charge people who interview a fee to get feedback, it’s just I think we could do so much better in terms of candidate experience, but we have to get out of our current mindset to shake things up a bit.

This all leads me to the next idea (hat tip to Orrin Konheim @okonhOwp) what if companies paid interviewees for their time?

Cool, right!?

We’ve built this entire industry on shared value.  Organizations have jobs, candidates want jobs, let’s all do this for free.  What happens when the equation isn’t equal?  What if candidates didn’t want your jobs?  Could you get more people to come out an interview if you paid them?  How much would it be worth?  It’s a really cool concept to play around with, if we can get out of our box for a bit.

Let’s say you’re having a really, really hard time getting Software Developer candidates to even consider your jobs and your organization.  It’s a super tough market, and you just don’t have a sexy brand.  You also don’t have the time to build a sexy brand, you need the talent now!  How much would it take to entice great candidates to give you an hour?  $100? $500? $1,000?  What if I told you I could have your CIO interviewing 5 top Software Developers tomorrow for 5 hours for $5,000?  Would you do it?

I hear the backlash of questions and concerns already forming in your head!

– People would just take the money, but not really want the job!

– How would you know these people were serious?

– Why would you pay to have someone interview when others will for free?

– Did you get hit on your head as a child?

– This might be the dumbest idea since your idea last week.

When we think about really having a great candidate experience, shouldn’t compensation be a apart of the conversation.  For most interviews you’re asking someone to take time off work, losing salary, time off, putting themselves at risk of their employer finding out, etc.  At the very least, you would think that we might offer up some kind of compensation for their time.  I’m not talking about interview expenses, but real cold hard cash, we appreciate your time and value it!

If you started paying candidates to interview, do you think you would get and have better or worse interviews?

When you put value to something, i.e., an interview, people tend to treat it as such.  Now that interview that they might go, might not go, becomes something they have to prepare for, because, well, someone is paying me to do this.  To interview.  I’m guessing if you paid your candidates to interview, you would get a higher level of candidate, and have a higher level of success in hiring.  It’s just a theory, wish I had the recruiting budget to test it out!

Are You ‘Entitled’ To One Mistake?

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Current NBA LA Clippers owner, Donald Sterling, got in a heap of trouble for making racist statements that were caught on tape.  The NBA is going to kick this guy out of being an NBA owner, and it’s probably about time, as he has a history of just being racist.  He doesn’t want to stop owning the Clippers, so now he’s trying to do all he can to save what he can, and possibly still hang on to the team and not be forced to sell.  What is an 80 year old racist NBA owner to do?  Why go on CNN with Anderson Cooper!

Sterling is doing PR to try and get the public on his side, which is a colossal waste of time, but when you’re a billionaire you do silly stuff. Sterling believes we should all forgive him for making one big stupid mistake.  This is his exact quote from the interview:

“Am I entitled to one mistake, am I after 35 years? I mean, I love my league, I love my partners. Am I entitled to one mistake? It’s a terrible mistake, and I’ll never do it again,”

First off, this isn’t Donald Sterling’s first mistake.  He has a history of being a bad guy.   The one mistake argument doesn’t work well for him.  But should it work for anyone? That really is the question for all of this.

Should someone, like one of your employees, get a second chance?

In the HR world this is almost a daily dilemma that is faced.  On one hand you want to say, “Yes!”, shouldn’t everyone get a second chance.  But, as HR Pros know, many times, we don’t give employees a second chance.  Of course, there are reasons of why you wouldn’t give a second chance.  Like the Sterling case, you know of a history of prior bad decisions, coupled with this evidence, you make the call to say, “Nope! No second chance!”

This is what makes HR tough.  I’m not a big believer in the concept of ‘setting precedent’.  Which means basically using a previous example to guide a decision.  HR people (notice I didn’t say Pro) love to use this concept to make tough decisions, easy.  “Well, we fired Jill when she was late three times, so we also have to fire Bill!”  No, you don’t!  Now, you might have some risk, but unless the cases are completely the same, you’re just trying to take the easy way out!  Maybe Jill was late without excuse. Maybe Bill showed evidence of going to extraordinary lengths to make it to work and just couldn’t.  Just because you made one decision one way, doesn’t mean you always have to make it that way.  That’s uninformed and naive.

You get yourself in trouble when you start making decisions differently, for similar circumstances, based on things like gender, race, etc.  That’s when you get yourself into problems.  But if Bill was a much better performer than Jill, should I give him another chance? That’s the decision I need to make with my business partners. But to go and just say “No” we need to fire Bill, doesn’t make a well informed partner.

What about true first time, one mistake, issues?  Does someone ‘deserve’ a second chance?  I tend to believe it’s all based on context.  Mess up a major presentation because you didn’t crunch the data correctly, and we don’t get the sale.  Okay, I’ll give you another chance.  Forget to turn off the power to a machine when you’re finished, and a coworker gets badly injured because of it. You’re fired.  Second chance decisions on contextual.  Donald Sterling didn’t mistakenly become a racist in a conversation once.  He should be done forever. The NBA’s main ’employee’ is predominately African American.  He’s a racist.  I have enough of the context.

 

Apparently, It Is All About The Money!

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To have highly engaged employees who must do what?

Come on. Come on.  What have you been told for the last 10 or 20 years?

I’ll give you the synopsis:

1. Recognize solid performance

2. Provide challenging and meaningful work

3. Give frequent feedback

4. Give employees a voice in decision making

5. Flexibility

Apparently, that’s all bull shit!  From the folks who teach other companies how to become Great Places To Work, Quantum Workplace, released a study last week that show from your most engaged employee, to your least engaged employee, they really only care about one kind of recognition — MONEY!  Here’s the chart:

engagement pic

Fascinating research, check out their white paper, it’s one of the better ones I’ve read in the past five years!

Also, it looks like your personalized pleather portfolios aren’t the bang for the buck you hoped for either!   That’s alright, neither is the spin you’ve been fed the past 20 years about people getting super psyched for additional responsibility, or the annual holiday party or summer family picnic.  All the crap blows as well.  You know what doesn’t blow?  MONEY! Yeah!  So, I’m really, really the best employee, with great performance?  Great! SHOW ME THE MONEY!

Also, you leaders who think your team just wants some words of praise, motivation and encouragement?  No they don’t.  They want you to hand out $100 bills, and shut your stupid mouth!

So, why have you been told a great big lie the last 20 plus years?

Advising leadership that all they have to do is hand out more money doesn’t really sell well!  Also, most companies are horrible at pay for performance.  They are unwilling to truly pay for great performance, and kick bad performers in the teeth with nothing.  We want to reward greatness with 5% and show those bad performers how serious we are by giving them a 1% increase! Take that bad performers!

What do you think gang?  What’s is your most important form of recognition?  Are you sure?  Or, are you just telling yourself that lie?

 

 

Should You Know Your Bosses Salary?

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It’s an age-old question.  Should organizations make their salary information public in-house amongst the employees?  In a era of transparency, it’s really the one thing most people still disagree on.  The higher up the chain you go, unless your in a publicly traded company, than it’s public anyway, the less likely you’re willing to want this data to be public within your organization.  The lower you are in an organization, the more you want this information.

Why?

At its core this notion of wanting to know the salary information of those around you is all about trust.  It really speaks to the human condition, and it’s quite ironic!  The higher you go up in an organization, the less you trust those lower than you.  The lower you are, the more you trust those above you are making the right decisions.  You could argue this. Sure many people at low levels don’t ‘trust’ management.  Yet, they still show up to work each day, and grind it out for $14.23/hr.  Those at the top are making 6,7,8 figure incomes, and jump around from position to position.  Who is more trusting?

Whole Foods company shares salaries of all of their employees within their walls. You can find out the salary of anyone! From Business Insider:

Whole Foods co-CEO John Mackey introduced the policy in 1986, just six years after he co-founded the company. In the book, he explains that his initial goal was to help employees understand why some people were paid more than others. If workers understood what types of performance and achievement earned certain people more money, he figured, perhaps they would be more motivated and successful, too. 

“I’m challenged on salaries all the time,” Mackey explained. “‘How come you are paying this regional president this much, and I’m only making this much?’ I have to say, ‘because that person is more valuable. If you accomplish what this person has accomplished, I’ll pay you that, too.'”

Beyond making compensation data available to all employees, Whole Foods also has its managers post their store’s sales data each day and regional sales data each week. Once a month, Whole Foods sends each store a detailed report on profitability and sales at each of the chain’s locations. In fact, in the late 1990s the widespread availability of so much detailed financial data led the SEC to classify all of the company’s 6,500 employees as “insiders,” according to a 1996 story by Fast Company.

“Oh, Tim, but that only works at a great company like Whole Foods!”  I hear you saying!
Yeah, you’re probably right.  It takes a strong, positive culture to handle this type of information being out in the open.  It takes extremely good leadership to handle the challenges coming in from average and weak performers believing they should get what someone else is getting.  It takes a great Talent Acquisition team to hire the right people who have the maturity to work in an organization that has this much trust in their employees to handle such delicate information.   It takes co-workers trusting one another, that each one is adding value to the corporation, and respecting the value each brings.
So, should you be able to know your bosses salary?  Probably not.

Reasons To Try Stuff

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Last week I got a chance to speak at the 5th annual Michigan HR Day on Social Recruiting.  The group was great, I had fun, we gave out some Coach Bags and I made some HR ladies uncomfortable.  I don’t actually intend to speak and make anyone uncomfortable, that isn’t a long term plan of speaker success.  But it usually happens to a small number of folks.

Here’s how it normally goes:

1. I talk about how to use a social networking site like Facebook to recruit great talent.  Show them how to do it.  Show them how they can get really specific in who they are searching for by skill, gender, location, company name, Likes, etc. All really good information, and the crowd eats it up! Things are going really well for me.

2. “Um, I have a question?”  Here it comes.  You probably noticed it yourself in the line above. He said ‘gender’ didn’t he? You can’t do that mister!  I’m an HR lady. You can’t do that. Then she pulls out her HR lady badge.

3. I say, “Yeah, you can do that”, and pull out my HR Guy badge.

4. She says, “No you can not!” Like my Mom, but scarier. “If you use a program like The Facebook to recruit, you’re going to have ‘disparate impact‘!”

5. I’m a pro, I’ve been here before. So I start asking questions, like, “Do your hiring managers ever see your candidates?” Yes.  “What the difference if they see them as a candidate or as an interviewee?” Well. “If you have a hiring manager willing to discriminate, that isn’t a Facebook issue, that’s a manager issue, isn’t it?” Yes. “Do you have any set of demographics you would like to have more of in your organization, like female engineers, let’s just day?” Yes. “What are you really worried about when recruiting on Facebook?”  Silence.

We don’t try stuff, because trying stuff could cause change.  When I speak about things people haven’t tried, a very small group, no matter where I am, will immediately try to come up with reasons on why they shouldn’t try it.  Not why they should. Our initial reaction to change is to find reasons to not change.

It really has nothing to do with recruiting on Facebook.  Facebook’s own demographics will show almost a 50/50 gender mix. LinkedIn, admittedly, is heavily male dominated.  Do you recruit on LinkedIn?  Do you see pictures of potential candidates on LinkedIn?  Aren’t you, the HR department, the ones pulling potential candidates, who have been trained not to discriminate when it comes to hiring?  So, what’s really the issue?  You see, it breaks down very quickly.

We aren’t really concerned about disparate impact or being discriminatory, we concerned about this guy asking me to do something I’m not comfortable with.  I just like playing Farmville and watching so funny kitty videos on The Facebook.  Do make me feel like I should have to do work on there as well!

The problem we tend to have in HR is that we don’t find reasons to try stuff.  We are pros at finding reasons not to try stuff.  Find some reasons today to try stuff, you’ll be a better HR Pro because of it.

Tattoo Hiring

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A tattoo is basically forever.

I know, I know, you can get them removed by laser now. But most people don’t go into a tattoo proposition thinking I can’t wait to pay a couple of thousand dollars to get this removed! It’s permanent baby. Like a Sharpie, but better!

Most organizations do Tattoo Hiring.  They believe we are going to hire this person forever.  In fact, go ahead and tattoo the logo on their butt while their in orientation.   But the life cycle of most hires is similar to that of your tattoo you got on Spring Break back in 2001.

Tattoo Hires:

1. Day 1 – it’s a little painful, but your so excited to have the person on board.

2. First couple of weeks – pain has gone away, still doesn’t look right, but you can tell you’re going to love them. And you keep showing the new hire to everyone you see, that has yet to see them.

3. Years 1-3 – Tattoo Hire is awesome. You’re proud of your tattoo hire. People comment on what a great hire.  You couldn’t be more proud of your tattoo hire!

4. Somewhere past year 3 – the first Tattoo Hire went so well, what the heck, time for another Tattoo Hire!  This time we’ll go bigger and better!

5. Into Tattoo Hire #2’s first year – you begin to notice your original Tattoo Hire doesn’t look as good anymore. Isn’t performing as well. You think it might be time to change your original Tattoo Hire.  While Tattoo Hire #2 is more awesome than you can imagine!

6. Time to remove Tattoo Hire #1 – You’ve finally made the decision, Tattoo Hire #1 has to go. It’s going to cost you thousands of dollars to remove, but Tattoo Hire #1 just isn’t what you want anymore.

That’s alright you’ve got Tattoo Hire #2!  I mean what could go wrong, a Tattoo Hire is forever, right?

Organizations that hire with a Tattoo philosophy are bound to fail.  It’s not that you can’t expect, or want, employees to stay with you their entire career.  You can.  The problem we face is when we don’t set up our organizations to support forever hires.  The new tattoo always looks better, because it is usually more defined and brighter and you put more thought into it.  An employee is no different.  You can’t let a more tenured employee fade.  You must keep them vibrant and up to date.  Or, many times you will spend a ton of money replacing them.

 

Evolving Just In Time Talent

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If you’re in the talent/recruitment game you are well aware it’s a Just In Time (JIT) game.  Has been that way since we were called the Personnel Dept. and will be that way for the foreseeable future.  Executives and hiring managers hate this about recruitment.  They think we should have this ‘pipeline’ of great candidates waiting to come into our organizations the moment we lose someone, or have a need to add additional talent.  But, we all know that while in theory that sounds really nice, it’s not reality.

There is a faction that tries to sell that this can happen, through things like talent communities, etc. Again, the reality is this is these types of things are just a show for our organizations, they really don’t do what our hiring managers are desiring.  Having a pipeline of candidates, who have yet to be screened, interviewed and offered (i.e., your talent community) is still just JIT talent.  Maybe a little quicker, but still far short of expectations from hiring managers.

So, how to you get On Demand Talent?

Eventually, we are going to see companies take a page from the contracting talent world and they are going to ‘bench’ their next hires.  In contracting great talent gets ‘benched’ in between their projects.  They actually get paid not to work, but be ready for the next major project they’ll be working on.  Could be a week, could be a month.  Corporate benching will be slightly different. Let me give you a peak of how corporations will eventually evolve JIT Talent to meet the expectations of their executive teams and hiring managers:

1. Active sourcing of top talent, even when they don’t have an opening.

2. Full screen, interview process and selection decision of this talent, even without an opening.

3. Contractual offer and benching bonus to be the next hire for a certain position.

What does all that mean?

Let’s say you have a group of Engineers.  You know at some point, based on your annual metrics over the last 10 years, you will lose an engineer to turnover within the next 12 months.  It’s critical that when you lose that engineer you have a replacement quickly, but the current cycle time of sourcing, interviewing and accepting is taking 8-12 weeks for your critical skill set.  Sound familiar?  Your hiring managers expectation is you’ll have someone in 2 weeks.  Which is impossible in your current process.

An On Demand Talent model would have you, without an actual opening, go through your full engineering search. Find that person who is right for you and extend them a hiring contract for the next available opening in the next 12 months. For accepting this ‘spot’ on your depth chart, you will pay this candidate a bonus.  Could be a one time bonus, could be a monthly bonus.  In the mean time, they continue to work at their current position and company, and wait.  When they get the call, contractually they have two weeks to give notice and start.

You meet the expectation of your organization, you have succession ready to go, you just created a better talent demand system.  Yes, it costs money.  But, so does having an opening in your organization for two to three to six months, while projects sit idle.

What do you think?  Blow holes in my theory of On Demand Talent in the comments.

 

Can I Be Completely Honest?

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“Can I be completely honest with you?” is a phrase usually followed by some sh*t you don’t want to hear.  We talk about this concept a bunch in HR.  We need to tell our employees the truth about their performance.  We work to coach managers of people on how to deliver this message appropriately.  We develop complete training sessions and bring in ‘professional’ communicators to help us out on the exact phraseology we want to use.  All so we can be ‘honest’ with our employees.

Can I be completely honest with you?

No one wants you to be honest with them.

They want you to tell them this:

1. We like having you work here.

2. You’re doing a good job.

3.  You are better than most of the other employees we have.

4. We see great things coming from your development, and you’re on target for promotion.

5. Here is your annual increase.

Now, that might actually be ‘honest’ feedback for about 5% of your employees.  That means you will be saying a different version of honest to the other 95% that won’t like you being completely honest.

That is why talent management is really hard.  No piece of software will help you with this one fact.  Most people don’t like honest.  The cool part of this is that most managers don’t like to be honest. It’s uncomfortable. It causes conflict.  Most people aren’t comfortable telling someone else that they have some issues that need to be addressed, and most people don’t take that feedback appropriately.  You tell an employee they have ‘room for improvement’ and they instantly believe you told them they suck and they’re about to be fired.

So, as managers, we aren’t completely honest.  We tend to work around the truth.  The truth is we all have things we need to get better at, and it sucks to hear it out loud.  If someone tells you they welcome this feedback, they’re lying to you and themselves.  Those are usually the people who lose it the most when they are told the truth.  People who tell you they want honest feedback will believe you’re going to tell them ‘honestly’ they’re a rock star.  When you say something less than ‘rock star’ they implode.

So, what’s the honest solution to this?

Say nothing.  Set really good metrics. Metrics that show if a person is performing or not.  Make sure everyone understands those metrics.  Then, when the employee wants feedback, set down the metrics in front of them, and shut up.  Don’t be the first to talk.  The employee will give you some honest feedback if you wait.  Which will open the door to agree or disagree? Otherwise, you’re just working on subjective.  Subjective and honest don’t go well together.

But, you knew that. I really like having you stop by and read this.  You do a great job at your job. You’re certainly better than all those other readers who stop by and read this.  I’m sure you’re on your way up!

 

Homing From Work

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This might be the phrase for 2014.  Every year we get stupid business phrases that become part of our lexicon:

  • “Use it or lose it!”
  • “Necessary Evil”
  • “A seat at the table”
  • “Thinking outside the box”
  • “Silo Mentality”
  • “At the end of the day…”

For 2014 I’m calling it – “Homing from Work!”

Fast Company released an infographic recently that had some interesting facts about how, especially in the U.S. (I have to say stuff like that now, because I have this international audience, which in itself is funny since the most international I’ve ever gotten is Canada and Mexico! Which I don’t really even consider international, they’re more like Northern and Southern suburbs of the U.S.) , workers are working more hours, and feeling like they have a healthy work/life balance.  Since 2011, there has been a 30% increase in the number of people working more than 9 hours per day, and 80% of white collar workers feel they have a solid work/life balance.

That doesn’t sound right, does it?!

Well, there’s a bit more!  93%! Yes, 93% of workers take care of personal business and family needs during their work day, while at work.  63% increase in surfing and shopping online – more women than men! Surprise, surprise. If you make over $100,000 you’re more likely to exercise during your work day. Workers under 30 are 76% more likely than workers over 50 to visit social networking sites while at work.

Now, that sounds about right!

“Homing from work” is nothing more than what it’s always been, but now we have a term for it!  Basically, you have some personal stuff that needs to get done, but you can’t do it after work or the weekend, so you do it at work.  It’s been going on since the 9 to 5 was invented!  The one thing you need to be aware of, though, is it works both ways.  If you want to “Home from Work” that’s cool, but don’t give me grief when you need to take a call from home or catch up on something during the weekend.  It’s not either/or, it’s both.  You can’t do one without an expectation of other.

I know you’re checking into Facebook at work. I know you’re booking your airline tickets for your vacation at work. I’m fine with that, but don’t act like I owe you something if you need to work an extra hour one night, or put in some hours from home.  Hoomie don’t play that.  Go ahead and home from work, just know that it comes with an expectation of working from home.

Attention Employees: Get Healthy, Or You’re Fired.

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(I’m on vacation, I originally posted this on Fistful of Talent in August of 2009 -way before Obamacare, but still rings true!)

I love companies that have had enough and aren’t going to take it anymore (Network clip). I also love listening to the workers, of said company, complain about how their company is “being intrusive” because they are being “forced” to take care of themselves.  The Wall Street Journal has an article entitled When All Else Fails: Forcing Workers Into Healthy Habits that uncovers the latest employer, AmeriGas Propane Inc., which gave its employees an ultimatum: get their medical checkups or lose their health insurance.  Isn’t that wonderful!?  Here is an employer who loves its people so much, they want to make sure they are going to be healthy and actually survive to collect their paycheck. Talk about employee engagement.

So, what is wrong with this?  Well, let’s just hear from one skeptical AmeriGas employee:

“Dennis Price Sr., a 48-year-old propane-truck driver in the company’s Warrenton, Va., office, says he was “a little shocked” by the idea at first. “I thought it was an invasion of our privacy,” he says. Mr. Price had never gotten his cholesterol checked, and generally avoided doctors.”

Sounds like he’s taking his god-given-all-American right to be unhealthy – nothing wrong yet. What say the unions?

“Labor officials say they object to the idea of mandated health tests. “This is a personal health matter,” says Gerry Shea, assistant to the president of the AFL-CIO. “To bring it into the workplace and tie it to benefits is inappropriate. It’s like Big Brother.”

Sounds like more god-given, all-American wisdom – boy I can smell the apple pie cookin’! What about management?

“Despite these efforts, Mr. Katz (VP of HR) and benefits director Carol Guinan found themselves in April 2007 chewing over some unpalatable numbers. Besides annual health-expense increases of 10% or more, the company, which self-insures its health plan, had paid more than two dozen insurance claims in the previous year for amounts greater than $100,000. Its workers had high rates of diabetes and heart disease.

 

The program, dubbed Operation Save-A-Life, was unveiled in August 2007 and took effect the following January. Each worker received a DVD at home to explain the effort and discuss cost and health statistics. One fact: AmeriGas employees younger than 60 were dying of natural causes at nearly three times the expected rate for that age group based on actuarial data.

 

AmeriGas estimates that more than 90% of its workers have gotten the required exams. Use of cholesterol drugs rose 13.6% in 2008 from a year earlier. For diabetes drugs, the increase was 7.7%, and for asthma medications and blood-pressure medicines, it was 7.4% and 2.5%, respectively.”

Damn management – they always have more to say and have all those fancy numbers!

The article, also, points out two specific examples of the screens catching one employee’s breast cancer, self-admittedly, earlier then she ever would have caught it herself. Also, the screens caught another employee who had liver disease and was able to reverse the effects by early detection.

I know there is a gray area here where companies can go overboard, but in today’s competitive world for talent, you can’t tell me that most companies aren’t trying to do the right thing.  Is making your employees go get a health screen a bad thing?  Probably not. Is firing them because they have high cholesterol after the screen a bad thing? Depends on their performance…  Just kidding… the fact of the matter is we have a broken healthcare system and most employers have to do something to reduce costs. So they can either interview under the precursor “does this person look young and healthy”, or we can allow them some slack to help make their own workforce a bit more healthy.