Category Archives: SHRM

What Kind of Mentor Are You?

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I got asked to be a mentor for someone recently.  It’s not the first time I’ve been asked, but I found myself wondering what ‘Tim Sackett’ as a mentor should look like.  Maybe it’s where I’m at in my career, but I found myself wondering what is it that I could really give someone coming up in our industry.

I would assume anyone asking for a mentor doesn’t really want me to show them how to recruit.  They’ve probably got that down pretty well, at least the basics.  The advanced stuff is probably best taught by some folks much better than me (Glen Cathey, Jim Stroud, Amybeth Quinn,  Paul DeBettignies, etc.).

Maybe I could offer up some help on the employment branding/marketing side on HR and Talent Acquisition.  I’ve had to do that for the last 20 years, I probably know just enough to better than most, but not as good as folks like Laurie Ruettimann, William Tincup, Maren Hogan, Lance Haun and Matt Charney.

I’m just dangerous enough with HR Tech that I could probably help out in that area for sure.  I’ve bought and implemented systems and tools at every stop in my career.  I know the game, but I certainly don’t know it as well at Steve Boese, William Tincup (again), John Sumser, etc.

It could be my mentee could use me for just straight HR generalist knowledge base.  If I know anything, I know a little about almost anything in HR from my stops in my career.  While I love talent acquisition, I really consider myself more of an HR pro.  Probably not as good as Kris Dunn,  Dawn Burke, Robin Schooling, Jessica Miller-Merrell, etc.

Compensation and Benefits, maybe that’s should be my ticket?  Um, no, probably not.  I probably know the least about this area as a whole and Ann Bares is my go to person for all things compensation.

There’s got to be something I’m the best at, worthy of being a mentor.  What about employee engagement?  From small companies to organizations with tens of thousands I’ve had employee engagement as a major measurable, I could do some damage here.   But, again, not as well as someone like Paul Hebert.

Talent acquisition as a function might be something I’m most comfortable with.  In my career, I’ve been constantly pulled into TA no matter what organization I’ve been in.  It’s been the one constant in my career, start in HR, and end up in Talent Acquisition.   Moving an organization from old school, post and pray, to one that hunts for talent is right up my alley. I don’t really know anyone I would recommend over myself on this.

As a mentor I think the most valuable thing I can give someone is the network I’ve built over the years.  It’s something I discovered a long time ago. I’m probably not going to be the best at any one thing, but I can know people who are.  Having the ability to know you need to surround yourself with people who are better than you, especially in areas you’re weak, is the key to having success in any stop you have in your career.

As a mentor I’m probably going to find out what you’re bad at, then introduce you to people who are really good at those things.  You don’t need to the best at everything when you surround yourself with the people who are the best at everything!

The Managers as Coaches Myth

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This isn’t necessarily a new concept, but it’s one that is popping up a ton lately in conversation.  The basic concept is we should be our managers and supervisors to be ‘coaches’ to their employees, not managers.   The view from Organizational Development and Training folks is that coaches are more of a representative of great leadership than we would normally think of when we think of managers and supervisors.

Um, what!?!

I’m not sure what people are thinking but I’ve been ‘coached’ and have been a coach most of my life.  When you tell me I should ‘act’ more like a coach, and less like a manager I get very confused.  Let me give you a little insight to how most coaches behave:

– We yell. Usually a lot.  Yeah, you don’t see that at your 8 year old’s soccer match, but go to a high school football game, basketball game, soccer match, etc. Don’t even get me started on college!

– Our vocabulary consists of about 6 words I don’t use on this blog very often.

– Our intent is to get our players to be a more aggressive version of themselves for a short period of time to help us win a game.

– I’ll make you cry.  It’s actually a goal of mine.  To push you beyond your comfort zone so you’ll breakdown and comeback stronger.

– If you worked really hard and give it your all I’ll give you a hug and maybe pat you on the backside.  If you fail, I’ll probably yell more.

– I’ll publicly extol the virtues of team, while behind the scenes push internal competition beyond a healthy level.

– I love it when my players want to kill each other, and having a fight at a practice isn’t really a bad thing.

This is the reality of coaching once you get beyond very young youth sports where everyone gets a participation medal.  This is real life.  Not every sport, not every coach. But if you took the top 100 most successful coaches in every sport, you would be shocked at their behind the scenes behaviors. You wouldn’t like most of them.  You wouldn’t want them around your kid.

But, let’s go ahead and teach our managers to be coaches!

Here’s the deal.  What training and OD are teaching our managers to be, are not coaches.  It’s an altruistic version of what they want coaches to be.  They believe coaches are there to just help you along to get better and build great teams.  Which conceptually is true.  How it’s done is not something your training department or OD would want to sign up for!

It’s a difficult concept.  Most athletes who have really been coached at a high level get it.  Coaches are super hard on you, because that’s the only way to make yourself better and win championships.  They’ll push you beyond what you think you’re capable of.  In the end you usually end up respecting your coach and are thankful for the pain they put you through.  Mostly, it ends up good.  But is that a process you really, truly want your managers and supervisors to put your employees through?

Doubtful.  You want all the outcomes of a great coach, but you’re not willing to allow them to go through the process of how a great coach gets his or her team ready for battle.  Give us the result without the process. It just doesn’t work that way.

 

1st Timers Guide To Buying HR Technology and High Priced Handbags

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STOP! Calibrate and Listen…before you go, “Ugh! Tim’s doing another webinar!”, check this out – it’s different than other stuff we’ve done.  Negotiating job board contracts, annual ATS service agreements, knowing what new technology to buy, etc. It’s all way frustrating and confusing…for me, and I’m guessing you.  I want us all to get better at this stuff, and this webinar is going to put us all back in the power buyers position!

Buying HR Technology (System of Record/HRMS, Applicant Tracking Systems, Performance Management Systems, etc.) should be as easy as buying a high-priced handbag or the latest pair of Jordans!  You see it. You like it. You know it’s going to fit and work for your needs. GO! Make the purchase. But it’s not that simple. Buying HR Technology is hard, confusing and frustrating.  A miss can potentially stall your career and undermine your creditability.

Fistful of Talent is here to help.  In classic FOT style,Steve Boese, the Co-Chair of the HR Technology Conference, and I, will break down the issues surrounding buying HR Tech in our latest webinar on August 28 at 12pm ET (sponsored by BambooHR), entitled Buyer’s Remorse: The  FOT 1st Timer’s Guide to Buying HR Technology.

Join us on August 28 at 12pm ET for “Buyer’s Remorse: The FOT 1st Timer’s Guide to Buying HR Technology,” and we’ll hit you with the following:

  • The Difference between a Suite or a Best-of-Breed Product: Why you should care? Which one is right for you to buy? We’ll break it down based on your unique needs.
  • The Decision Tree/Process That Helps You Arrive at the Right Decision Regarding Which Solution to Buy. Yes, we can tell you exactly what to buy! But we won’t, because great HR Pros need to understand how to make these decisions. But don’t worry—we’ll show you how!
  • 6 Tips and Tricks the HR Vendor Community Uses to Get You To Buy Their Product—which might not be the product you actually need. Learn how to make sure you don’t succumb to these tactics when making your next buying decision.  This section alone will ensure you take control of your next buy like a pro!
  • The Secret for Getting Your Organization to Invest in HR tech and How to Build ROI for your Executive Team. Every buying decision comes down to the why and ROI, and your ability to persuasively and concisely get your organization to support your recommendation.  Sometimes the hardest part of an HR Tech buy is your ability to get approval to buy!

    Bonus Feature: CEO     Ben Peterson, from BambooHR (an HR solution specifically designed for small-to-medium-sized HR departments), will stop by and do a quick Q&A with Tim and Steve to discuss the biggest mistakes he sees HR buyers make when making HR Tech purchases… and how to avoid making those same mistakes yourself!

Things that are hard:  Riding a bike on a freeway. Getting your kids to eat peas. Buying HR Tech. Join us on August 28 at 12pm ET for “Buyer’s Remorse: The FOT 1st Timer’s Guide to Buying HR Technology,“ and we’ll make buying HR Tech easier. You’re on your own with the other two.

REGISTER TODAY!

10 Mistakes You Don’t Want To Make In HR

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I thought it was time that I randomly start listing mistakes we make in HR and letting those coming into HR what not to do.  So, here you go, enjoy!

10 mistakes you don’t want to make in HR:

1. Hiring someone who reschedules their drug test more than once.  I’m willing to give someone one reschedule, stuff happens.  After one, if you’ve got a druggie trying to find out how to keep his Mom’s pee warm long enough to make it to the testing center.

2. Creating a leadership training program when it’s really one bad leader who just needs to be canned.  Everyone knows who the problem is, and now ‘HR’ is making everyone go through training one person needs.  They hate us for this.  Just shoot the one bad leader and move on.

3. Changing policy or making a new policy, when it’s really one idiot who is taking advantage of the current situation. See above.  We do this because *93% of HR Pros and Leaders are conflict avoidant (*Sackett Stats, it’s probably higher!).  Come join the 7% of us who aren’t, this side of the pool is really enjoyable!

4. Designing health benefits that are better for you, but worse for everyone else.  Don’t tell me this doesn’t happen!  It happens all the time.  The person in charge of plan design sees something that will help them, and believes it will also help everyone else.  Oh, look! We now can go see the Chiropractor for massages, but I can’t get my kid the name brand Asthma medicine he needs.

5. Talking about how much less money you make in HR, as compared to a bad performer in any other area. No one cares that you make $25K less than Mark in sales who is a buffoon.  It just makes you look bad and petty.

6. Throwing a fit about hiring an executives kid, or anyone else they want you to hire.  Just hire the executives kid.  This is not a battle you want to fight, it’s not worth it.  In the grand scheme of things this one hire doesn’t mean a thing.  The kid will either be good, average or bad.  Just like the rest of hires we make.

7. Designing a compensation plan which, by peer group, puts you higher than other functions.  I don’t care what the ‘Mercer’ data says, you shouldn’t put out there that you should be making $15K more than the person in Finance at your same level.  No one believes you, and they don’t trust you can handle this when the data doesn’t seem right.  This is especially sticky for Compensation Pros, who always believe they should be paid higher within the HR function.

8.  Thinking you can be ‘friends’ with people you work with, outside of work.  I’m not saying it can’t happen, it might.  It just becomes really bad when you have to walk into your BFF Jill’s office and ‘can’ her one day.   You can have very friendly relationships at work without inviting those folks over to the office for Girls Night Out.

9. Believing it’s not your job to do something.  In HR we fill the voids left by every other function.  It’s our job to do everything, especially those things no one else wants to do.  Never believe something is not your job!  It is.  Plus, that actually adds value to the organization.  Be the one function that doesn’t bitch and complain when they need to do something that isn’t on their job description!

10. Telling an executive they can’t do something because ‘we’ll get sued’.  Our job in HR is not to tell executives, or anyone else, they can’t do something.  It’s our job to tell them how they can get it done, while making it less risky to the overall organization.

What mistakes do you see HR makes?

 

I Hate Buying HR Software!

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I’m your typical HR buyer.  Each year I negotiate contracts on a number of products, from ATS, HRMS, Recruiting Tools, Selection Tools, etc.   I usually demo and look at 6-10 new products each year.  Okay, I’m not typical that way, I love new stuff and what it can do, so I like to check it out.  Beyond that, I’m very much your typical HR buyer.

Every single time I go through a buying decision I feel like I’m buying an expensive car or a house.  Hell, that’s usually the cost of the contract of whatever product I’m buying!  Therein lies the problem.  I hate buying cars and houses.  It’s stressful and I always have this deep feeling I’m getting taken!  You know the feeling.  The feeling like you paid too much, and someone else buying the same exact product as you paid less!

I hate that feeling!!!

I don’t mind paying what everyone else is paying for a product.  I feel like a failure, as a HR Pro, when I find out I paid more than someone else, and I check!  That’s the one cool thing about writing for talent and HR blogs, I have a Big network (that’s what she said)!  This allows me to connect with other HR and Talent Pros and ask them what they paid.  I have a deep urge to know whether or not I got a good deal and a bad deal.  And, I’ll be honest, if I got a bad deal, it really affects how I think about the company.

Because these decisions are so stressful for me, I decided to do something about it.  I called the one guy that knows more about HR Technology and industry more than anyone else I know, Steve Boese!  Steve is the co-chair of the annual HR Technology Conference (want $500 off? Use the code: SACKETT14 when you register), which is the 2nd largest HR conference to SHRM national, but arguably becoming the must-see HR conference of the year.  HR Tech has all the players in one spot and all the HR decision makers, it’s a very cool place to see the future of HR unfold in front of you!

I asked Steve to help me put on a webinar, that would not only educate me on how I should be buying HR Tech, but also uncover all those tips and tricks to make sure I don’t ever again have that bad feeling I have when I buy!  The webinar title: Buyer’s Remorse: A 1st Timers FOT Guide To Buying HR Technology and High Priced Handbags!  You see, I feel buying HR Tech, should be as easy as buying a handbag without the buyer’s remorse!

This one is personal to me!  I think all HR Pros can learn from all the mistakes I’ve made in buying HR technology and from Steve’s brilliance!

Come join us on August 28th at Noon EST for this FREE webinar:

Dad’s Don’t Get Work-Life Balance Empathy

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Max Shireson, the CEO of mongoDB, turned in his resignation this past week.  That announcement in itself isn’t really that big of a deal, CEOs turn in resignations every day.  The reason he turned in his resignation is huge.  I’ll let him tell it in his own words from a letter he sent to mongoDB’s workforce:

“Earlier this summer, Matt Lauer asked Mary Barra, the CEO of GM, whether she could balance the demands of being a mom and being a CEO. The Atlantic asked similar questions of PepsiCo’s female CEO Indra Nooyi. As a male CEO, I have been asked what kind of car I drive and what type of music I like, but never how I balance the demands of being both a dad and a CEO.

While the press haven’t asked me, it is a question that I often ask myself. Here is my situation:

* I have 3 wonderful kids at home, aged 14, 12 and 9, and I love spending time with them: skiing, cooking, playing backgammon, swimming, watching movies or Warriors or Giants games, talking, whatever.

* I am on pace to fly 300,000 miles this year, all the normal CEO travel plus commuting between Palo Alto and New York every 2-3 weeks. During that travel, I have missed a lot of family fun, perhaps more importantly, I was not with my kids when our puppy was hit by a car or when my son had (minor and successful, and  of course unexpected) emergency surgery.

* I have an amazing wife who also has an important career; she is a doctor and professor at Stanford where, in addition to her clinical duties, she runs their training  program for high risk obstetricians and conducts research on on prematurity, surgical techniques, and other topics. She is a fantastic mom, brilliant, beautiful, and  infinitely patient with me. I love her, I am forever in her debt for finding a way to keep the family working despite my crazy travel. I should not continue abusing    that patience.

Friends and colleagues often ask my wife how she balances her job and motherhood. Somehow, the same people don’t ask me.”

When we talk about ‘inclusion’ we aren’t really talking about everyone.  That’s the problem.  We wonder how possibly a woman could handle the pressures of being a CEO and being a Mom, but we never wonder, or even care, how a man handles the pressure of being a CEO and a Dad.   It’s expected a man can do both, we question if a woman can do both.  

There is a cultural expectation, wrongly, that as a man I can be CEO and a Dad and perform just fine. As a woman, I’ll have trouble doing both jobs, because the Mom does more than the Dad.  The mom cooks and cleans and nurtures and schedules and kisses booboos and, well, does everything for the family.  The lazy asshole Dad comes home and waits for the Mom to fix him dinner and his drink.  Really!?! Is that where we are in 2014?

I’m a Dad and a President of a company.  I feel for Max.  My wife does a ton, it can’t even be measured.  I don’t expect her to do everything and help out a ton with parenting when and where I can.  I assume if the roles were changed and my wife was a CEO, I would have to pick up more of her home and parenting duties.

This goes beyond just duties, though, this is about emotional connection.  As a Dad, like Max, why should I have less of a connection as a parent than my wife.  Why do we throw that cultural expectation onto our employees, on to our executives?  As a father I frequently feel failure.  Maybe it’s because I missed being able to have lunch with my son at school.  Maybe it’s because my wife has a stronger relationship with my kids than I do.  Maybe it’s because I trying to live up to a cultural expectation that I should be less of a parent.

No one ever wants to talk about how hard a man has it, trying to be a father and work.  It’s not ‘politically’ correct.  Men have it easier. End of story.  That sucks sometimes.

3 Ways I Make HR Better

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If you’re sitting in your HR office right now reading this, about to create some new HR stuff – stop – your wasting our time (and by “our” I mean all of us employees in the organization).  “Wow, look who woke up on the wrong side of the week!”

It’s not that I don’t think being creative is important. It is, it’s Hugely important.  Being creative in HR just isn’t important.   I know you think it is, that’s because you want to be creative, so you make yourself believe that’s important.  But the reality is, anything you can do, I can do better.  No, not because I’m better than you.  I mean I probably am, but that isn’t the point.  I can do it better because all I’m going to do is take what you’ve already done, and make it better.

In fact I’ll do a few more things while working on improving your thing:

1. I’ll make it cheaper

2. I’ll make it more simple to use

3. I’ll make it fun to do

See! Stop being creative, and just start making things better.

From an article in Fast Company:

The line between becoming a pioneer and a “me-too” flop can be unclear when you’re in the weeds of development. Uncertainty is an easier destination to arrive at than confidence, especially when the truth is, there’s no such thing as making anything that’s really new. Everything is an evolution of something else. But you can make something better. When in doubt, ask yourself if you’d use your new product instead of the market leader’s. If the answer is yes, keep going. If it’s no, then stop and rethink.

This obviously talks about products, but services and what we offer in HR are very similar.  Is that program you’re developing in HR better than what your competition is developing in HR?  If yes, carry on. If no, make it better.  It isn’t hard. It will take some hard work, but it’s not mentally challenging.  When I see people unwilling to make their HR Shops better, I know one of two things are at play:

1. They’ve given up on the organization, and they need to go, or;

2. They are fundamentally lazy, and need to go.

It’s a painful truth most leaders just don’t want to realize.

Just make it better.

Michigan HR and Talent Pros!

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Hey, just getting back from SHRM’s 2014 National Conference and it’s just one more reminder to me why I love going to HR conferences.  I get to meet new HR folks, who are passionate about HR and Talent!  I love that!

Here’s what I want to do.  I want to push myself to meet one new HR person, face to face, in Michigan for the next 52 weeks.   Let’s connect, and let’s get together.  Here’s my information:

Email – sackett.tim@hru-tech.com

Phone – 517-908-3156

Twitter – @timsackett

Reach out to me and let’s schedule a time.  I’ll come to you, or we can meet at some place close.  Coffee, lunch, an ice cream cone, a Diet Dew, whatever, let’s just make this happen.

Send me a message.  I want to fill up my calendar.  I’m in Lansing, but I’m in the Detroit Metro area a lot, also close to Grand Rapids, etc. Let’s face it, I’m centrally located and driving an hour or so, isn’t a big deal. The connections will be worth it!

Let’s do this!

Sackett’s 2015 SHRM Presentation Proposal

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Okay, gang, I want to crowd source my title for my 2015 SHRM National Presentation Proposal.  I’m going to give you a list of titles and ideas, and you let me know what you think you would like to see.  Or, even better yet, let me know what you’re not seeing at SHRM, and let’s make that happen!

Here are my ideas:

#1 – 7 Ways Diet Failures and HR Failures are the Same: How we can ensure success for both – First let me say, I don’t have some magic diet plan to ensure you’re going to lose weight!  If I had that, I wouldn’t be speaking at SHRM, but I think I could have fun with this topic. Let’s face it, most of us struggle with dieting and keeping in shape. Those failures, speak to failures in other parts of our life!

#2 – My Mom Fired Me: It Made Me a Better HR Pro – She did fire me, it did make me a better HR pro. This is my story, with more tips and tricks on what you can do to make yourself a better HR pro without having to have your Mom fire you.

#3 – Shake Your Money Maker: 6 Ways HR Can Make it Rain on the Bottom Line – First, I’m guessing this title would never make it at SHRM, but it sure is fun!  Plus, I know I can deliver a hell of lot more than six ways for HR to give money back to the organizations.

#4 – Why CEOs Believe Weird Things – Every SHRM conference has a ‘what your senior executives want presentation’ (this is the one I gave this year). It’s fun, it’s widely attended.  I like doing it.  But, I would have to freshen it up and come at it from another direction.

#5 – I Got 99 Problems, But Hiring Managers Ain’t One of Them – How to get your hiring managers to absolutely love you and your team.  That’s enough, right?!

#6 – A Black Guy, A dude in a Wheelchair and a woman walk into a Bar: Inclusions Biggest Lies – Another title I’ll have to change, but let’s have a real conversation about why Inclusion isn’t the right answer for your organization to be most effective.

#7 – Teaching Fish To Climb – Why most development we espouse in HR is worthless, and what we should be doing instead.  Teaching HR folks to think and act like business professionals.

#8 – It’s time for “The Talk” with your Hiring Managers – 8 Real Life Conversations Every HR Pro Needs to Master – More workshop than presentation, watch me bring up 8 real life HR pros on stage and we teach you how to have the conversations you’ve been struggling to have in your organization.

#9 – If I Ran HR: Tim Sackett’s Guide To Having HR Run The World – If I could develop an HR organization from the ground up, what would it look like, who would I have on my team, what changes would I make immediately.  Some of these things you can probably do in your shop when you get back from the conference!

Okay peeps – hit me in the comments!

Hi! I’m a Society of Human Resource Management Senior Certified Professional…

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I have some HR friends who are telling me that SHRM’s recent decision to develop their own certification is a non-issue to real trench HR pros around the world.

What do you think?  Is it a non-issue?

I think it is, but we won’t see the real effects of the change for a year or more down the road.  I recertified with HRCI this past year, so basically I’ve got three years before this becomes a real issue for me.  At that point, I have a decision to make.  Here’s my three decisions:

1. Recert with HRCI.  It’s easy, I know it, I get to keep my SPHR letters that I’ve become so comfortable with and that most people in the industry view as something that means I know at least something about HR.

2. Certify with SHRM’s new certification.  Get comfortable with a new set of letters – SHRM-SCP which seems overly long, but I think people in industry will recognize the SHRM letters and say, yeah he probably also knows something about HR.

3. Just skip it all together.  I’ve reached that 20 years of experience career mark.  Do I really need some letters to tell people I know my stuff?  Probably not.  Look, any job I’m going to have moving forward in my HR career, probably could care less if I have letters behind my name.

You might say, “wait, Tim! there are other choices!” Like, I could certify with both HRCI and SHRM! No, I don’t consider that a choice.  Why would I do that.  Let’s face it, neither organization really has put the best foot forward in this whole mess, and I don’t need a business card that says:

“Tim Sackett, SPHR, SHRM-SCP”

That’s just ridiculous, no one wants to see that, or have to explain that!

I’m wondering if SHRM believes we should just go with “Tim Sackett, SCP”, at which point someone will ask “What’s SCP?” and I’ll go “It’s Senior Certified Professional”, to which they’ll go, “of what?”, to which I’ll go, “of Human Resources”, to which they’ll go, “what is the S and the M stand for than?”  You see where this is going…

All this being said, I do have to agree with my HR friends.  In the large scheme of things this will be a non-issue.  SHRM has launched their new certification program.  Most people will go down that path.  A few will hold out and keep their HRCI certification.  I don’t know if it will be enough to save that company, I’m doubting it.

Like I said above, this is a non-issue for me for the next three years.  My reality is I’ll keep developing myself like I have for the last 20 years.  I’ll go to SHRM events. I’ll go to user events. I’ll attend webinars on topics that interest me.  Regardless of the letters, I believe in development.  That’s why in the long run this becomes a non-issue to trench HR folks.  You either believe in making yourself better, or you don’t really care much about that.  That’s what really separates professionals, not letters.