Category Archives: Retention

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.

 

Candidate Bill of Rights

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In November 2010 Monster.com asked me to write a post on a hot topic at that time a “Candidate Bill of Rights“.  Needless to say, I’m not a huge fan of a Candidate Bill of Rights – I’m a Capitalist and believe in a free-market system of HR and Recruiting.  Here were my main point then – and what they are still today:

Candidates –

You Don’t Have To Apply:

  • If we have a crappy working environment – you don’t have to apply
  • If we don’t pay appropriately for the market – you don’t have to apply
  • If we don’t give my employees opportunities for growth – you don’t have to apply
  • If we don’t treat you like a human – you don’t have to apply
  • If we don’t give you a full job description – you don’t have to apply
  • If we don’t tell you every step of the process – you don’t have to apply

You Don’t Have To Work Here:

  • If we make you wait endlessly without any feedback – you don’t have to work here
  • If we make you an offer that you don’t like – you don’t have to work here
  • If we don’t offer the right work-life balance – you don’t have to work here
  • If we give you a bad Candidate Experience – you don’t have to work here

Candidates – if any of the above is true – you have some decisions to make:

1. Can I live with what I know about the company and the experience they put me through to get this offer?

2. IF SO, do I want to come and work for the company?

3. IF YES – welcome aboard, you’re coming on ‘Eyes Wide Open’

4. IF NO – thanks – good luck – see you next time

You see we all have choices – if you don’t like the way I’m treating you as a candidate, don’t come and work at my company.  I would hope that most HR Pros are smart enough to get this fact – treat candidates like garbage and they’ll stop applying for your jobs, thus making your job all the more difficult.  That might be a bit pie-in-the-sky thinking because I also know way to many HR/Talent Pros that don’t get this!   They have a little bit of power and have decided to torture candidates with painfully long and arduous application and selection processes – that aren’t helpful to their own companies, statistically, and definitely aren’t helpful to the candidates.  During a recession they don’t see much impact from these horrible processes, but eventually the tide turns and face the results of their actions.  Karma is a bitch!

So, do we need a candidate bill of rights – No!  Do you need to spend a ton of time, effort and resources on candidate experience – No, as well!  Don’t go right ditch-left ditch and start over correcting.  Treat candidates like you would want to be treated.  Have a few standards and etiquette, and some manners.  It’s not hard, it’s not expensive and you definitely don’t need to pay a consultant to show you how to do it!

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!

89 year old Nurse for Hire

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I read a wonderful story last week about the longest serving Nurse in Michigan, Dorthe Canty, who is retiring at the ripe old age of 89!  Having worked in a Health System I can tell you this is no small feat, for one simple reason it’s tough being on your feet for 50+ years taking care of patients.  Can you imagine what pushes someone to work in such a demanding field until the age of 89?  Here’s what Dorthe had to say:

“What am I going to do instead – sit at home?”

I love that!

Why is it we push so hard for everyone to retire at 65?  That’s what we do as HR Pros.  As soon as someone starts having those birthdays pop up around 62, 63, 64 we start hinting around those questions – “So, Charlie when are you going to retire?” , “What’s your plan for retirement Sue?”, etc.   It’s really one of those American cultural norms that our government started when they decided Social Security should start at 65 – that was our little reminder that at age 65 you become to broken down to work any longer!  Thank you – but like so much of what our government set up in 1930’s and 1940’s in really no longer relevant.

We now raise our kids to believe that retirement, basically to stop working and start having fun, should be there goal.  I think we should change it.  I don’t think I’ll ever stop working. I have 3 boys to put through college, then I have weddings,  then I hope to have untold numbers of grandchildren that need to learn how to hit a curve ball and master the crossover dribble, then I have another round of college, and, well you know life just keeps coming at you.  The goal shouldn’t be to stop working, the goal, the expectation should be to enjoy your life while you are living it.

I don’t need retirement at 65 for one simple reason – I enjoy what I’m doing – and oh by the way – I get paid to do it!  If or when that stops, I’ll find something else I enjoy and usually if I enjoy something I find a way to make money at it, because I like money – it allows me to give things to my family, which I enjoy most of all.  You see work doesn’t define me at 41ish – the combination of my family, my friends, my work, my life defines me – so retirement doesn’t sound like a goal I want, it sounds quite frankly like an end. I think it was that way for Dorthe as well. She didn’t want to just sit home on the sidelines, she wanted to be in the game, she wanted to participate in life. So do I.

The World’s Toughest Recruiting and Retention Challenge!

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As HR Pros we all have our greatest recruiting stories and retention saves – and as HR Pros – we always think ours are the worse!   With the killing of Osama Bin Laden recently you would think the Navy SEALS have the easiest recruiting and retention job in the world right now – wouldn’t you!?  I mean let’s face it – the SEALS are 2011 Rock Stars.  Every guy wants to be one, and every girl wants to date one (well, and maybe some guys to – I’m inclusive being in HR!) But, a recent Newsweek article, The Coolest Guys in the World, tells a different story:

They were already a semi-legendary bunch, a wing of the Navy that attracts gung-ho soldiers who drink snake venom and punctuate kills with a kiss to the victim’s cheek (if their memoirs are to be believed). Swagger, perhaps, but also inevitable. SEAL training takes at least two years—about the same as it takes to become an astronaut—and includes an agonizing combination of brain and brawn, topped with five days of simulated battle stress. The men call it “Hell Week” (official name: Motivation Week), a regime of bullets, bombs, and extreme endurance tests. Men can ring a bell to quit at any time, and historically two out of three do. There are only about 2,500 SEALs worldwide, and an estimated 200 in Team Six, the squad that picked off three Somali pirates from 100 feet on rough seas in 2009.

But the SEALs haven’t always enjoyed such heady days. In fact, the bin Laden mission is a bright spot in a history marked by scandal, failure, and, most recently, a decade of stalled recruiting efforts. That may not change. “Recruiting is a big problem, and retention is an even bigger problem,” says former senator Bob Kerrey, a Medal of Honor–winning SEAL during Vietnam. “Ninety percent of a SEAL’s life is training, preparation, and being bored to death.”…

In recent years the Navy has stepped up its efforts to find such pros, offering a $40,000 bonus to recruits who survive basic training, and scouting out men who can do just that. The profile is very specific. The men most likely to succeed as SEALs, according to a 2010 Gallup study commissioned by the Navy, are at least 5 foot 8 and 162 pounds, eschew the Big Four sports for pastimes like water polo, snowboarding, and lacrosse, and hail from “New England, the northern Plains, or the West Coast.” Their average age is 22 to 25.

As Talent Pros we always go after the best talent we can find.  Can you imagine having to go after such a specific profile, only to then have to ask them not to be who they are most of the time!?  We want you to be America’s most feared killing machines, but hey just wait over their for a few months and we’ll give you call when we need you.  That is a major Retention Challenge!  We want the worlds greatest adrenaline junkies, who have a on/off switch.  And don’t tell me this isn’t a Recruiting Challenge – sure everyone is knocking on your door to be a SEAL – but you don’t want everybody – you want a very specific profile – you want a Needle in a Haystack!

So, what’s the most challenging recruiting and retention scenario? The one where everyone wants the job, you only want a very small few of them, and then wants they get the job they don’t want it any longer!  Welcome to the show boys!

 

Retention Fixes on a Shoestring Budget

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I love small and medium sized HR shops for a number of reasons, but none more than for the simple fact, smaller sized HR shops have to be creative.  My grandma grew up during the Great Depression and got real use to have nothing, so like many people during that time in history, they worked their butts off and made do with what they had, and came up with some really creative ways to get things done.   In retirement she loved eating out at restaurants, probably because she was forced to cook all those years because she couldn’t afford to go out, but in retirement she didn’t really have the money to do this as much as she wants.  To solve this problem (Great Depression people are real problem solvers!) she tinkered at home, cooking the dishes she liked the most from her favorite restaurants, until you couldn’t really tell the difference between hers and the restaurant.  I remember showing up at her place late one night with my younger brother and he was hungry, and grandma couldn’t wait to feed “boys” (she lived for that), and she asked him what he was hungry for (he was 12 at the time) – he told her “nachos”.  Now I was pretty sure she had no idea what nachos were, but she went to work and about 20 minutes later she came out with a plate of nachos stacked so high with melted cheese and ground beef and salsa and sour cream, etc. you would have thought she drove down to your favorite sports bar and brought it back!  15 years later – my little brother still talks about those nachos.

Creativity and small HR shops, remind me of grandma. 

Having worked in big HR shops the one thing that frustrated me most was sitting around in large meetings, trying to figure out how to “fix” retention – and listening to all the ways and how much money it was going to cost.  In the end I always came back to, if we just take all this money we are going to spend on the “fix” and just go out and hand to the employees, we probably won’t have a retention problem – but large HR shop folks don’t like to hear that!  So, for you small HR shop folks out there, with little or no money to spend on increasing your retention – I came up with a few ideas you might want to try before you go spend all that money on that recognition software and anniversary awards.

No Money Retention Fixes:

  1. Fire the manager with the lowest retention.  (You have the data, you know who is turning people over – your organization needs to send a message that managers, not HR, not the CEO are responsible for retaining talent.  This has to be the first step – your leaders have to have a clear understanding it is their job to retain, their employees – and they’ll be held accountable for it.)
  2. Measure it by Department, and post it publicly for all to see. (No, don’t just share it in meetings – put it up in the lobby, down the halls, everywhere.  Then just wait – it will almost change overnight – no one likes to be at the bottom of any list, and have everyone know it.)
  3. Fire your worst performers – then use that money to compensate your best employees more. (It’s a wash – your worst employees aren’t helping your productivity anyway, and your best will appreciate the increase, appreciate you noticing the bad people were taking away from the team, and they’ll give you more discretionary effort.  The result – same cost (actually less if you factor in benefits, taxes, etc.) more productivity, a little less headcount.
  4. Have your senior leadership talk about retention publicly, constantly. (That which gets measured will get changed, that which gets measured and has the eye of senior leadership will get changed much quicker!)
  5. Institute a “Save Strategy” for employees who want to leave. (Save Strategy? If an employee puts in their notice, have them go meet with your CEO and explain to her why they are leaving – you’ll be amazed at the results and how many people will change their minds. Some people just want to know you care – and sitting down for some one-on-one with the CEO, shows that a whole bunch.)