Video Interviewing for Cavemen

Posted on May 16, 2012 by Tim Sackett

When I start to think about adding something like Live Video Interviewing or Video Screening to my HR/Recruiting Toolbox – I instantly go to about 100 reasons why we can’t do that in our environment!

It’s too Technical!

It will take too much time!

It will cost too much!

I’m not smart enough to make this happen – and I don’t want to look like an idiot in my organization!

The Kris Dunn and I are two 40ish white guys – who normally struggle changing the clocks on our ~~VCR~~ DVD players – so we get it – we get your feelings – this HR technical stuff, is well, at times, just too technical!

So, we decided to do something about this for our fellow HR/Talent Pros – we’re doing a free, live webinar on the 5 Ways to Use Video to Raise your HR & Recruiting Game. Our intent is to break this down so even your Mom and her iPhone can show you how to add video into your HR Shop – whether you have a 1 person HR shop or a 100 person HR shop – we’ve got some ideas for you. If you haven’t used any video let in your HR Shop – this is a must see Webinar – it will blow your hiring managers away and help you fill reqs so much faster – and the value proposition is ridiculously cheap!

Kris and I have gotten to play around with this and through trial and error, and a few IT folks yelling at us, I think we have some simple ideas that can help you begin. Plus, for all those who register for the Webinar – we’ll provide you with a Tool Kit to help give you some step-by-step instructions to get started – again For Free. Why do we do this for Free? I would ask myself – well we don’t! We have a sponsor – HireVue – who pays the technology bill to allow us to provide it for Free! Win-Win for you.

Sign Up Today – unfortunately we have a “Technology” limit of how many people we can accept and our last Webinar filled up very quickly! (isn’t that such a cheesy sales line!)

Rookie Hiring Mistakes

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Tim Sackett

The New York Times recently had a good article titles “The Top 10 Rookie Mistakes for Entrepreneurs” which looks at the top reasons people usually fail when starting a new business. As you can imagine many of the reasons where typical: expense control, fiscal responsibility, having a strong value proposition, etc. But out of all 10 reasons there was one glaring omission on why so many new business owners fail – when it comes to hiring and the HR side of the business:

11. Holding on to Bad Hires too long.

This might be the biggest Rookie hiring mistake ever – it definitely is something we can all relate to – I don’t know of one leader that at some point in their career hasn’t done this!

Here’s the problem with this mistake:

You want to believe that your hiring process works – so, the person just needs more time.
You want to believe in the person – I mean all people want to do well, right!? – so, you give them more time.
You want to believe you, as a leader, can help the person through this – so, you give them more time.
You want to believe that you don’t make hiring mistakes, that’s for other idiots – so, you give them more time.
You want to believe, period. So, you give them more time.

This happens to the best leaders in the world – usually numerous times – before they get how bad this is for themselves and their organizations.

I think most people see ‘holding on to bad hires’ as a sign of weakness. “Oh, you know Tim, he doesn’t have the balls to just go and fire Joe! If Joe worked for me, he wouldn’t have made it one day!” We hear this kind of stuff from our managers all the time! The truth is, this has nothing to do with weakness – this has everything to do with Hope. We never hire someone thinking “Oh, boy this gal is great, I can’t to fire her in 90 days!” You don’t hire, to fire. That’s why this becomes so tough.

Only after we get scared and hardened from enough bad hires – do you truly understand what the negative impact is, to hanging on them for too long. Many people will say – they are “long to hire, and quick to fire”, but that’s a lie. The majority of us are quick to hire, and long to fire. It’s a rookie mistake – one we all do, or have done. So, what am I telling you? When you know. When you truly know (your gut tells you, your metrics tell you, your peers are telling you) that you’ve made a bad hire – do the right thing for you and your organization. Remember – you didn’t fire them, they fired themselves.

The Value of Returning Moms to your Workforce

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Tim Sackett

I overheard on the radio about this Australian company who is rewarding returning mothers to their workforce by paying them Double their salary when they return to work, for the first 6 weeks. My first impression was – “Oh hell No – don’t let any of my female employees find out about this!”

For those who don’t know I run a very young company – not young on experience – young on average age of employee. It comes with the territory – most 3rd party recruiting companies have a fairly young workforce. Get new recruiters right out of college, train and grow them into your culture – make them part of the “family”. There’s something else that comes with all the fun and energy of a young workforce – a ton of weddings and a ton of babies! We have the standard punchlines – “Don’t drink the water here!”, etc. But the reality is, in the last 10 years – there hasn’t been a time when someone in the office hasn’t been pregnant. It’s now part of the culture.

The Australian company got me thinking – no, not about paying my returning moms double – that’s crazy talk! It got me thinking about how valuable my returning moms are to my company. It’s a huge worry I have every time one of my employees comes in to share their awesome news. “Hey, Tim I’ve got something to tell! I’m pregnant!” My response – “Awesome! I’m so happy for you! Who’s the father?” The “who’s the father” line is joke – I usually the know the father – remember – we’re a family – not much happens that we don’t know about. I honestly feel so excited for them. Internally, though, I’m going “Oh, Shit!”, because I know I’ve got a realistic 50/50 shot at getting that person back after they deliver. That’s nature – I love my job, but once I hold that baby in my arms – I love it more and I’m finding out a way where I don’t have to leave them all day.

So, now I understand why this Australian company is rewarding returning mothers. Give them a little extra incentive to return – knowing how hard it is to pull them away from their baby and start this new life as a mom and an employee. Life just got doubly hard – we’ll give you double the pay! You deserve it. As HR Pros and Organizations, we tend to struggle to really understand how difficult this transition is. We welcome the people back, we understand the sleep deprivation and the separation anxiety – but we honestly have no idea how hard it is – unless you’ve gone through it yourself.

I love returning moms for these reasons:

– They get hard work and sacrifice!

– They can juggle a hundred things at once!

– They have perspective of what is important!

– They work doubly hard to maintain a balance in their life!

So, what is your organization doing to ensure your returning moms are going to return? I know if I could afford it, I would pay them double, but beyond that what else? Think of what new Moms need – a transition plan to ease back into their “new” life, flexibility, encouragement, understanding and maybe a big bottle of wine and a sitter every so often! When we talk about the cost of retention and engagement – this is what we are talking about. Finding ways to keep your best – in my world – My mommies are my best!

HR Strategy for Dummies

Posted on May 2, 2012 by Tim Sackett

In HR we have to have a strategy for everything. What’s your employment brand strategy? What’s your orientation strategy? What’s your open enrollment strategy? It’s not really strategies for most of these – they’re processes – but we get hit over the head so many times in HR we stopped calling our “processes” – “processes” and started calling our “processes” – “strategies”. It makes us feel strategic when we have strategies!

Unfortunately, it’s rare that I see a real strategy for an organizations talent – their people. We strategically have many strategies in HR – our strategic benefits strategy, our compensation strategy, our recruitment strategy, etc. These really aren’t strategies either – these are more, what I call – HR operational initiatives – it’s the crap we do on a daily basis – it’s our jobs. It’s not strategy.

What is strategy? It’s a plan of action designed to achieve a vision.

We do really well on the plan of action! We usually fail on the last part – achieving a vision – because usually we really don’t have a vision – unless you consider doing the job a vision!? It’s not. The vision part of your strategy is by far the most important part – it needs to connect to the heart and minds of your HR group. They need to truly believe in it – it will shape decision making at all levels in your department – or at least it should!

Your HR Strategy needs to speak to what you truly believe on the people side of your business. It’s alright if your strategy and your current reality are not yet at the same point – you need to have a vision to be able to reach it. Very few organizations design their strategy based on their current state – unless they’ve already reached that pinnacle of excellence they desire. Too often I see HR departments go to design an HR Strategy – and it breaks down because people try and throw reality into the mix – “Wait, this isn’t who “we” are – we aren’t what you are saying…” I love realist – but they usually aren’t the best ones to draft your HR Strategy! You obviously need reality in your strategy – but not so much that you just regurgitate your current state.

I can’t tell you what your HR Strategy should be, but I can tell you some elements that better be a part of it:

The level of talent you need to achieve your organizational strategy
The type of talent you need to achieve your organizational strategy
The personality traits your talent will need to be successful in your organization

Not every organization needs high energy, go-getter, experienced individuals to be successful – some do. Some need calm, mild manner, entry levels to be successful. Many organizations need a large mix of talent, traits and experiences – heck – most of us do! In the end – we all need great talent that cares about their personal outcomes, they care about organizational outcomes and they believe both of those things can be accomplished under our roof.

Lastly, make your HR Strategy simple – so simple everyone in the building can spout it off in under 5 seconds. That will be hard to do – but that will make your strategy lasting and effective.

Recession Fallout in HR

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Tim Sackett

I have a feeling I’m about to preach to the choir. I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with hiring manager lately – that just don’t get it! (I hear you saying “What do you mean “lately” – did hiring manager “ever” get it!) The Recession has made our job very hard – Today – especially if you are currently trying to hire anyone with technical skills (engineers, designers, IT professionals, Scientist, etc.). During the Recession we had candidates coming out of our ears! Today, it seems like, almost overnight, technical jobs across the country have turned on like a fire hose! Everywhere companies are trying to find technical talent – in all industries – all at the same time. Remember that baby boomer Tsunami of retirement we were suppose to see? This feels like the first waves are hitting the shore in terms of technical hiring!

I’ve spoken to engineering schools that 100% graduation hires, plus companies now paying for engineering seniors, senior year of tuition! I’ve spoken to companies that have had to double their payroll projections – mid-budget year, just to have enough money to hire the same amount of projected hires at the beginning of the year. In HR and Recruiting we get this – the market moves, sometimes very quickly, and organizations have to be prepared to adjust and move with it – or risk causing some very bad outcomes to our operations. But, do our hiring managers get this?

I’m hear to say – not enough have gotten the message!

Over the past few months, it seems like we are having daily “conversations” with hiring managers who are still wanting to see the same 20 candidates they saw during the recession, and turning down candidates for minor things like “he seemed a little shy”, “she was from Tech and I like State grads”, “he’s had 2 jobs in the past 10 years!” I’ve had hiring managers have interviews, come back and say they like both candidates really well, but would like to see some more – when there aren’t any more! It all sounds familiar doesn’t it! The Recession did this to them! It made the greedy – it made them ultra picky – it made them believe there is a never ending pool of great candidates who only want to come work at your company. Ugh! I hate the Recession!

So what?

In HR/Recruiting this is where we become marketers – we start selling – and what we are selling is an idea. An idea that the world is different, they sky is falling and there’s only one person left to hire. That person – is the stupid candidate I just put in front of your face!!! (wouldn’t that be great if we could say that!?) Look, I understand you and your hiring managers “only want to hire the best talent” – BTW – so does everyone else. But times are changing – if you want to hire the best – you better be paying the best – or at least offering the best value proposition as compared to your competitors. Lines of candidates are out their just waiting for calls any longer. It’s simple addition – more technical job openings than candidates + baby boomers now beginning to feel like they can retire = our job just got a lot tougher!

5 Things That Demonstrate You’re Not Getting Paid Enough

Posted on April 16, 2012 by Tim Sackett

I was reading an article recently, it was one of those “Best Places To Work” type of articles. Since I run a company, I’m always looking out for good ideas on how to take care of your employees without spending a dime – unfortunately – “Best Places” companies that make these lists usually don’t give you these type 0f ideas! What you get from “Best Places” articles are all the over the top crap – gourmet cat food for your in cube pet-mate, free liposuction for your spouse and discounted tattoo eyeliner coupons. I would love for my company to be on the top of every single “Best Places” to work article – but we probably won’t. I care too much about my employees to make that happen.

What?!?

Yes, you read that right – My greatest weakness is I care too much!

It costs an organization a ton of money to make a “Best Places” list – not in actually applying to make the list (oh yeah, they are chosen randomly – you have to apply – the Top 100 Greatest Places to Work isn’t really the Top 100 Greatest Places to Work – it was the Top of the companies that applied for the award Greatest Places to Work), but in doing all the silly crap they do, so they sound like a great place to work. Many of the best places to work, will never be on a list, because they are spending their time, money and effort – on their employees!

Here are some things that “Best Places to Work” companies and You Not Getting Paid Enough have in common”

1. If you’re company has unlimited gourmet free breakfast, lunch and dinner provided – you’re not getting paid enough. Cut that crap out and pay me $10K more per year – I’ll bring in my own Greek Yogurt and granola.

2. If your company pays to have your laundry done and your house clean – you’re not getting paid enough.

3. If your company is taking you on luxury vacations and dinners that cost more than your monthly home mortgage – you’re not getting paid enough.

4. If your company spend more on marketing themselves as a great place to work, than on your employee development – you’re not getting paid enough.

5. If your CEO flies to work on a daily or weekly basis – you’re not getting paid enough.

So, how do I show my employees that I care and that we have a great place to work? I don’t waste money on things that ultimately become a negative when I need to take them away because we aren’t making the money for our shareholders. All great places to work, eventually become average or crappy places to work – because sustaining luxury programs that you put in place when your doing well – become negatives to engagement when you tighten your boot straps.

Pay your people fairly. Meet their needs as adults. Treat them professionally and with respect. That’s a great place to work.

#16 Rap Lyric That Shaped My Leadership Style

Posted on April 13, 2012 by Tim Sackett

For the background of this list – see my original post from 2-10-12.

The #16 Rap Lyric That Shaped my Leadership Style comes from Coolio off the 1995 Dangerous Minds soundtrack, from his song Gangsta’s Paradise. This might be the one song every 40 year old white guy can still sing word-for-word at the local Holiday Inn bar karaoke night – but that still doesn’t take away how great of a song this is. Ranked #38 in VH1’s 100 all time Hip Hop songs, it was by far Coolio’s biggest hit. They Lyric:

“They say I need to learn, but nobody’s here to teach me. If they don’t understand, how can they reach me?”

I guess they can’t; I guess they won’t. I guess they front. That’s why I know my life is outta luck – Fool! (see 42 – still got it!)

I’ll give you some extra time with this one, because I know you all had to listen to the full version – besides Eminem’s Lose Yourself – is there a better song associated with a movie? You know a song is good when it’s better than the movie!

This lyric reminds of how we onboard in our organizations. In HR, this is something I think we can always get better at, and we tend to just try and process this down so that onboarding takes as little time as possible. When in truth – onboarding should be an ongoing process that takes weeks or months, and HR ensures the great talent we bring into our organizations actually gets everything – I mean EVERYTHING – they need to be successful. We owe it to them – and to often we throw them a set of keys, a laptop and a phone and say “Go!”

Somehow we feel like – “hey, we’re paying you a salary – you should know what to do”, but they don’t – we need to teach them. Raw talent doesn’t mean you’ll be successful in our unique organizational dynamics and culture. I’ve seen way to much great talent leave organizations – where the organization feels like the person was a failure – even though they came in as a Rock Star, and they go on to their next position and they are a Rock Star. You didn’t reach them – in fact, you probably didn’t even put in the effort to reach them.

Remember – we don’t hire idiot, worthless people. Every person we hire – comes in with the highest expectations. They have good experience, good energy, good background – we ensured that. If they fail – it’s on us – not them (mostly).

Are You Drowning In Your Position

Posted on April 9, 2012 by Tim Sackett

You know the crazy thing about drowning? It doesn’t look like you’re drowning! Read this from Mario Vittone:

Except in rare circumstances, drowning people are physiologically unable to call out for help. The respiratory system was designed for breathing. Speech is the secondary or overlaid function. Breathing must be fulfilled, before speech occurs.
Drowning people’s mouths alternately sink below and reappear above the surface of the water. The mouths of drowning people are not above the surface of the water long enough for them to exhale, inhale, and call out for help. When the drowning people’s mouths are above the surface, they exhale and inhale quickly as their mouths start to sink below the surface of the water.
Drowning people cannot wave for help. Nature instinctively forces them to extend their arms laterally and press down on the water’s surface. Pressing down on the surface of the water, permits drowning people to leverage their bodies so they can lift their mouths out of the water to breathe.
Throughout the Instinctive Drowning Response, drowning people cannot voluntarily control their arm movements. Physiologically, drowning people who are struggling on the surface of the water cannot stop drowning and perform voluntary movements such as waving for help, moving toward a rescuer, or reaching out for a piece of rescue equipment.
From beginning to end of the Instinctive Drowning Response people’s bodies remain upright in the water, with no evidence of a supporting kick. Unless rescued by a trained lifeguard, these drowning people can only struggle on the surface of the water from 20 to 60 seconds before submersion occurs.

Take away the eventually water death – and this seems eerily familiar to some of our employees…

As HR Pros/Hiring Managers/Supervisors we have people who are drowning in their positions right now – but we can’t “see” them drowning. Employees have natural things they do in terms of self-preservation, much like some one who is truly drowning. They begin to do: put in extra time at the office, they seem a little to stressed for normal work, they make things bigger than what they are (this gives them an excuse in case of failure), etc. – it gives you an impression “they’re on top of it” – but they aren’t. They tend not to ask for help – they don’t want anyone to know they’re in trouble – they can handle it on their own.

How do you spot an employee who is going under?

1. Look for employees who are disengaging with key relationships they need to have to get their job done. Why? Employees who are drowning – will disconnect from those who will be the first ones to spot them drowning – key hiring managers or peers from other departments – which buys them time from their own supervisors finding out they aren’t staying afloat.

2. They become defensive or blame shift – when this isn’t usually part of their normal behavior. Another mechanism they use as a life preserver – “it’s not me – it’s them!”

3. Drowning employees tend to cling to each other. Rarely will you see a drowning employee hanging with a top performer (that’s one more person who will see they aren’t making it).

How do you save an employee who is drowning?

That’s even tougher than spotting them! Because it takes you confronting them, and not allowing them to cop-out, most HR Pros/Hiring Managers/Supervisors find this very uncomfortable (hello Performance Management!) It basically takes you jumping into their role – deep – and pulling them out. Most of us don’t like getting our clothes wet and ruining our iPhone – so we try and throw them things to help instead – additional training, words of encouragement, EAP, discipline…sound familiar? When what they need is some full life saving – to push them up for air and take them to shore (you’re sick of metaphors at this point! – actually do the job with them for a while, so them how it should be done). You still might decide when it’s all done to let the person go – they just can’t handle the position – but some will actually learn from the experience and turn out to be really good.

Make HR Suck Less

Posted on March 28, 2012 by Tim Sackett

Are you working in a HR department that sucks? You know if you are, it’s alright, you can admit it – it’s the first step of changing it.

I bet I talk to over a hundred HR Pros a year that begin the conversation with – “our HR department sucks!” or “my company doesn’t get it when it comes to HR” or “Our HR department is terrible”. It’s not the outlier, it’s the norm. So, many HR Pros working in HR functions where the organization has the feeling that “HR” sucks in our company. If you’re not in one now – great – but chances are you have either been in one before, or eventually you’ll make a “grass is greener” decision and put yourself into this situation.

You know what? We have the power to make HR Suck Less. Yes, you do. Stop it, you do. No really, you do. Alright that’s enough, just play along with me at least!

Here are the 3 steps to making HR Suck Less:

1. Stop doing stuff that Sucks. But Tim! We have to do this stuff. No you don’t – if your HR shop blew up tomorrow – your organization would still go on. Over time you’ve “negotiated” to do all this sucky stuff – thinking it would “help” the organization, or give you “influence”, etc. Stop that. Give it away, push it out to other departments – start doing stuff that doesn’t suck, more than doing stuff that does suck. It’s not easy, but it can be done, little by little.

2. Get rid of people in HR who Suck. Some people get real comfortable with sucking. They wear their suckiness around like a badge of honor. You need to cut the suck out of your department – like cancer!

3. Stop saying that you Suck. We brand ourselves internally with everything we do – and if you say that you suck at something – the organizational will believe you suck at something. If you say we are the best in the industry at recruiting our competitions talent away from them – you’ll be forced to live up to that – and little by little you will live up to that and the organization will begin to believe it as well. Signs and Symbols!

Every single HR Shop who feels they suck – doesn’t have to suck. If you feel you don’t suck, but everyone else tells you that you suck – you suck. You’re just delusional and you keep telling yourself things like “we have to do this stuff”, “it’s the law”, “we don’t have a choice”, etc. This is the first sign you’re comfortable with sucking – you aren’t listening to your organization. No one has to suck – you can decide to do things in a complete different way. Perception is reality in terms of sucking. You need to change perceptions, not reality. You can still accomplish the exact same things, just do it in a way that people think you rock. Start saying “Yes” to everything – not “No”. “No” sucks.

Sucking less is a decision – not a skill. You all have the skills – you just need to make the decision – to stand up and believe – Today we will no longer Suck!

It’s Back! FOT’s Top 25 HR/Recruiting Blogs!

Posted on March 22, 2012 by Tim Sackett

Fistful of Talent – which I’m proud to be a member of – is releasing it’s Top 25 HR and Recruiting Blogs. What’s really cool about this list – unlike some other lists I have poetically mentioned in prior posts – is this isn’t made up by some random analysis, of random metrics – this thing is totally un-apologetically 100% subjective! That’s right, we (the FOT Tribe) sent in our own Top 25 HR and Recruiting Blogs that we love to read -the blogs we are fans of – and we ranked them 1 to 25. Simple – yet very effective!

I’m not saying that it’s easy to pick the Top 25 – for starters no FOTer blog can be a part of our list – which right there eliminates probably the 10 greatest blogs on the planet! So, I might have to recommend to Kris that next year we call the list – The Top 11-35 HR and Recruiting Blogs! That being said we looked at hundreds of blogs – many of us have our personal favorites – many of us really like and read blogs that our out of the HR world – as our personal favorites. What I can tell you – is the Top 25 – are solid! If you are looking for a list of HR and Recruiting blogs to follow – you won’t go wrong with any of these!

FOT’s own Steve Boese will be doing his thing tonight at the HR Happy Hour – unveiling the winners and talking HR with some of the top HR bloggers in the business – go check him out –

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/steve-boese/2012/03/23/hr-happy-hour-141–the-hr-blog-power-rankings

HR Happy Hour Episode 141 – ‘The HR Blog Power Rankings’

The Tim Sackett Project

TA & HR Expert, Dad, Backup Point Guard on my over 40 men's team

Category Archives: Retention