Launch and Learn

Posted on April 22, 2013 by Tim Sackett

I love HR Pros! I really do.

There is one common trait that many of the best HR Pros have – we love to have things perfect before we launch or go public with them! BTW – this is specific to HR – Operations, Sales, Marketing, etc. are all willing to ‘try’ stuff – to throw it out there and see what happens. In HR this is taboo!

Why is that?

For me this idea is the one thing that truly holds HR back from being innovative. Think about these words from Mark Suster at the Both Sides of the Table blog:

“I’m sure you’ve all heard saying derived from Voltaire, “don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good” which in a way is encapsulated in the lean startup movement and the ideology of shipping a “minimum viable product” (MVP) and then learning from your customer base.

I think about this topic of perfection being the enemy of the good often. Because I live in startup land where everybody is a perfectionist. I think this is particularly true because every startup entrepreneur is trying to catch lightning in a bottle.

I hear about it in every first product release. You can see it in the founders’ eyes. They want the perfect feature set, the PR company lined up to do the perfect press release, they want maximum coverage, rave reviews, viral adoption and they want to sit back and then wait for the signups to come roaring in.

Life doesn’t work like that. And gearing yourself up for a lighting-in-a-bottle moment leads to bad company decisions.”

If those types of decisions lead to ‘bad company decisions’, inevitably those same types of behaviors will lead to bad HR decisions.

I hear what’s going around in your head right now, HR Pros! I’m an HR Pro myself – that voice is hard to quiet. “How can making sure something is perfect – a project, a program, a new process – be bad for HR and our organization!?” Making something perfect isn’t bad. Failure to launch is bad. Also, taking too long or using too many resources to ensure perfection can be a huge negative to how HR, and you, are viewed. In HR we aren’t trying to save lives or solve the world economic crisis – we have some room to ‘test’ and do some ‘trial and error’ – as long as communicate that is what you’re doing.

I’ll give you a little secret I’ve used for years in HR. Like most of us in HR I’ve designed my fair share of new programs and processes, and I’ve tried to make them perfect. To ensure I didn’t have something blow up on me – I always have done ‘soft’ launches. I’ll launch with a single department or I’ll communicate out that this is a ‘test’ and we need feedback. 99.9% of the time my ‘test’ goes off without any issues and the ‘test’ becomes the program. That .01% of the time that something goes wrong or there are errors – we chalk it up to why we ‘doing the test first’! Everyone wins. Employees and hiring managers get to tell you where you messed up without feeling like they’re stepping on toes. You get to correct your errors without feeling like an idiot. The company moves forward – faster.

The Ultimate Guide to Mobile Recruiting

Posted on April 17, 2013 by Tim Sackett

867-5309 (Ok, if you under 35 years old you might not get this reference – but Kris Dunn is 43ish – and he wrote this content – so forgive the GenX reference – but here’s the link to the Tommy Tutone video back when MTV had videos!)

Jenny, Jenny, we’ve got your number…. But in the dynamic landscape of mobile recruiting, those seven digits aren’t always enough to get the job done. So what’s an HR or recruiting pro to do?

Sure you could leave your card plastered on a bathroom stall for all willing and able talent to see, or you could register for the April installment of the FOT webinar and start laying down the foundation for your mobile recruiting strategy.

Join Microsoft’s Xbox’s own – Jason Pankow and Kris Dunn (not from Microsoft Xbox) as they lay down FOT’s Ultimate Guide to Mobile Recruiting, brought to you by the mobile sages at iMomentous. Join your hosts April 24 at 1pm ET and they’ll hit you with the following:

A survey of the mobile recruiting landscape and the factors driving the need for HR and recruiting professionals to develop their mobile recruiting strategy.
Mobile site vs. Native App? FOT tackles the great debate, presenting scenarios of how each fit into your mobile recruiting strategy.
The five keys to enhancing your mobile recruiting strategy by capitalizing on features like quick apply, SMS, social media and QR codes.
The ultimate checklist for selecting your mobile recruiting vendor, including the top questions you need to ask when vetting potential vendors.
How to go beyond the optimized screen to attract top talent to your organization by incorporating video content and thought leadership into via your mobile recruiting strategy.

Hire Jenny.

Register for FOT’s Ultimate Guide to Mobile Recruiting webinar today! (It’s FREE because we make someone else foot the bill!)

How Obamacare Can Help Your New Hire Retention

Posted on April 15, 2013 by Tim Sackett

You know what’s really cool? When major change happens to an industry, entrepreneurial people find a way to make money off that change! I love America!

Obamacare, The Affordable Care Act, is having major changes to the healthcare industry and some forward thinkers are taking advantage. One company in particular is a startup out of New York, NY called Health Recovery Solutions. Here’s what Forbes had to say about what they are doing:

“For too many patients, hospitals have a revolving door: They leave, get sick again, and are quickly readmitted.

The Affordable Care Act aims to curb preventable return visits with heavy financial penalties: If 25% or more of the Medicare patients a hospital treats for pneumonia, heart failure or a heart attack are readmitted within 30 days of discharge, the hospital gets whacked with a 1% reduction in its Medicare reimbursements for every single patient it treats.

The penalties kicked in late last year, and those little 1% slices add up fast. “If a hospital gets $300 million a year in Medicare payments, that’s $3 million,” says Sandeep Pulim, a co-founder and chief medical officer of Health Recovery Solutions, a startup that aims to help hospitals cut their readmissions.”

How do they do it? They give each patient a tablet with a recovery plan, videos, instructions, etc. when they leave the hospital. Teach them how to use it and follow up with communications to ensure the patients is using and following the plan. Let’s say this helps stop 50% of readmissions – that saves the hospital $1.5M in penalties – lets say the service and equipment cost $750K – the organization still saved $750K by using their service. Pretty good ROI!

How does this help your New Hire Retention?

You could use the same methodology with your new hires! Let’s say your cost of hire is $5,000 per hire (which is very low for almost any kind of hire!), and you’re turning over 25% of your new hires. This is costing your company thousands of dollars each year. A tablet is $500 – you load it with content that helps a new hire not only adjust to your culture, but to their job – build a communication and followup plan – engage the hiring managers – reduce your new hire turnover by 50%. You will save thousands of dollars. Bam – there’s your business case ROI to buy tablets and build content to your executive team.

Another company has already shown you the road map – you just need to make some adjustments and build content – it takes time, but it isn’t too hard for HR to do. It’s funny how having to carry around a tablet, as a new hire, will change your culture. People will see them and think ‘hey, that’s a new hire – I should say something. I should do something to help them” – signs and symbols are powerful that way. Having to log into each day and see what the plan is for them each day, helps new hires focus on where they are going with the company – where they need to be at. The power of direction and goals, helps add comfort to the uncomfortable nature of starting a new position, in a new company. Having a built in communication tool between you, the hiring manager and the new hire will definitely let you know sooner when something isn’t right and let you address it.

Innovation happens best when major change is about to hit. If you look close – Obamacare will give us some great ideas in HR!

Want Higher Employee Engagement? Integrate a Cat Charity

Posted on April 10, 2013 by Tim Sackett

Have you ever tried to get your employees to join a Habitat for Humanity project, or go down to the local homeless shelter to volunteer? It seems like an easy endeavor, I which of your employees don’t want to help out the less fortunate? Apparently, most of them! From Georgetown University’s Center for Social Impact:

“…the study underscored this new dynamic: You are twice as likely to see a message from one of your social network contacts promoting an animal charity as you are a human rights campaign. And causes dedicated to the disabled or homeless are even less popular, the study found.”

It sounds unbelievable right? I mean, we all hire great, caring people – we are great, caring people, so why is it we would rather support a charity to help animals, than our own brothers and sisters who are living on the street? I call it the face test. It’s easier for us to look into the eyes of a dog and cat and feel empathy. It’s difficult to look into the eyes of a homeless man or woman – it makes us uncomfortable. It’s similar to when people have a hard time talking about death – it becomes a little to real for them. You having to engage a homeless person puts into real terms what life potentially has to offer – to you. It makes you very uncomfortable. So we combat that by making ourselves feel good – by donating money to animals. We can rationalize that to ourselves – these beings can’t take care of themselves – so I will help them.

How does this help your Employee Engagement?

Pretty simple – don’t fight psychology – you’ll lose. I’m not saying don’t support homeless charities – please do! What I am saying is that your employees will rally around and be more engaged to help homeless pigmy goats, or barn cats in need of food. It’s sad, but true. People like to feel like they are making a difference, but most don’t want to get their hands dirty. Local animal shelters needs funds. Great! Our employees are the best, they’ll help! And, they will. That’s a good thing for your engagement. Don’t focus on the negative, focus on what you can control in your world. If you truly feel that bad about the concept, go out on your own and donate your time and resources to take care of actual humans.

Believe me, I’m guilty of this as well. I support the crap of finding a cure for Leukemia. Truth be told, I’ve never met or known anyone with Leukemia – yet each year we do specific fundraising things just to help this cause. I drive by a homeless guy almost every day on way to and from work – and I’ve never once offered to help him – not thrown him a couple bucks, dropped off food, nothing. Psychology is a monster. I vow to stop and offer some assistance the next time I see a homeless person. I also vow to start an office program to help disabled kittens – it’s sure to get high participation!

Do you value new employees over old?

Posted on April 8, 2013 by Tim Sackett

Here’s a quick way to check!

When an old employee comes to you and says, “Hey, I really like working here but I’m hearing from folks that I can make like $10-15-20K more doing the same thing at the company across the street.” And you go, “Well, you know, we love you and you’re doing great work, but we just can’t afford to pay you that much more. Sorry. Let me see what I can do for you – I need to talk to HR.”

Your supervisor then goes to HR. She tells HR what you said. HR might actually know that your competition is indeed paying that much more – but the budgets are done – we didn’t figure in 20-20% pay increases. Let’s first go back and try and give them $3,000, bringing their total to $75,000, and again tell the employee how valuable they are to us and how much we need them on ‘our’ team. Sound like a plan? Sound like you’ve had this conversation before? I have.

So, the supervisor does it – gives them employee $3,000 and waits and hopes the employee will take it and not actually go out and look. Here’s the problem. The $3,000 increase you just gave them – probably was the straw that actually broke the camels back! Now, for sure they’ll look.

Let’s fast forward a month down the road. Same employee comes into the supervisor’s office and turns in 2 week notice. They got their offer for $20K more than you were originally paying them, they are now at $95K – they gave you a chance – you blew it.

Fast forward two months down the road. You’ve posted the position, did interviews and now want to make an offer to the replacement. The replacement wants $95K. You go to the hiring manager and tell them the budget only has $75K in it. The hiring manager comes back and says they have no choice, we have to pay $95K…

You value new employees over old employees.

Recruiting, Reenvisioned

Posted on March 29, 2013 by Tim Sackett

What is the worst buying experience you’ve ever had? For most people, it’s buying a car. New or Used, it doesn’t matter – buying a car, sucks. It starts with the sales person. You go onto a lot, you see a car you like and you want to take it for a test drive. The last thing you want is to have someone you don’t know, ride a long with you and make small talk when you’re trying to decide if the car if right for you. It starts the entire experience off on the wrong foot. Then you finally decide and you have to sit through a minimum of an hour while you do this stupid dance between the sales person and their ‘sales manager’ as you negotiate the car. From top to bottom, most people would rate – buying a car – as the single worst buying experience they’ll ever experience. The entire process is set up for the car dealers, not for the buyers.

From a recent article in Time on re-envisioning the car buying experience:

…“I wish the Apple store was more like an auto dealership.” Or even something like: “My check engine light comes on and I smile.”…When asked what car shopping should be like, Michael Accavitti, vice president of marketing at American Honda, and one of the judges at the challenge, offered the following description:

“It should be like when you go to an ice cream store. Everybody is happy at the ice cream store. They are laughing, smiling and joking. When you buy a car, it should be the same.”

Recruiting is a little like buying a car for a company/hiring manager/candidates. It’s uncomfortable. Both sides want to ask things, but they don’t. Both sides want information, but it’s not shared. In the end, one side usually feels like they’ve won, and one side feels like they ‘left something on the table.’

How do we change that?

That is a really difficult question. Like the car buying experience, dealers and auto companies would have changed it decades ago if they would have a better answer. The problem comes down to the company not believing the buyer is smart enough to understand their position and need for a profit. “Hey, look, the car cost us $15K, we need to make $2K, the taxes will be $1K – it’s going to cost you $18K” Instead they they list it $25K, and let us feel like we are ‘getting a deal’ when they negotiate it down to a purchase prices of $21K – then we find out a neighbor down the street got his for $19K and we lose our minds. Trust broken – you made one sale, you won’t make another.

I think, like the article explains, recruiting functions need to become more match making services versus we’re going to sell you what we have! Ultimately, I’m not looking for the best talent. I’m not. I’m looking for the best talent that matches my culture and can work effectively within our organization and those already in it. Those could be very different people. Recruiting tends to only look, or mostly only look, for skill match. Hiring manager needs Java Developer, Recruiting delivers Java Developer, one or both are miserable because they didn’t really match to begin with. The problem with why we don’t do this now, is that it frankly takes to long and is too subjective. Subjectivity causes HR heartburn.

I don’t have an exact answer, but I wonder what recruiting would look like if we went more match.com vs. monster.com?

Ugly People Hate Recruiting’s Newest Silver Bullet

Posted on March 25, 2013 by Tim Sackett

One really great thing about the traditional resume is that you can be a Troll and no one will know until you actually show up for the interview! Hey, getting to that point is half the battle. Once you get into the interview room and you’re super uggs – you’ll get a courtesy 20 to 30 minutes at least. This gives you some time to actually break down those initial rejections to your looks and prove yourself worthy of working with these beautiful people! It’s really win-win. Long live traditional resumes.

The reality is, ugly people are running scared right now! While video interviewing and video profiles aren’t new – they’ve finally gotten to the point where ultra conservative corporate HR and Recruiting departments are beginning to use them. The tech has gotten so simple, your baby boomer hiring managers can figure it out – at least if they can figure out how to open an email. Plus, the ROI on cost is ridiculously low, as compared to flying someone in for an interview. It’s not if, but when, most companies will be doing video interviewing and screening as a major part of their recruiting process.

That sucks if you’re Ugly. Now, you’ll never make it to that interview room for the courtesy interview – Video Interviewing Vendors have stolen your dream. Blame them – and your parents for your genetics, heck blame it on the rain – doesn’t matter, you’re not making it through. Unless! Unless, you follow these easy tips for nailing your video interview/screening opportunity:

Don’t look like yourself. Seriously – if you’re not the ‘pretty friend’ in your friend group, ask the pretty friend to help you get ready for the interview. It’s a video – not a runway – only worry about what you’re wearing from the shoulders up. You have to have your best hair day ever. Professional makeup – cover up anything you can see in good lighting. Again, don’t do this yourself – ask someone much better looking than you for help – or pay to have it done.

Practice. Not into a mirror, not to your cat, not to your Mom. Practice on video. Yes you can – you have a smart phone – just set it up on something and push record – then watch it back. Repeat 250 times. You’ll instantly notice all the things wrong with you – that’s good. Now limit those annoying things you’re doing, because that is what someone else is going to see instantly. Practice is key, because most automated Video interviewing/screening systems only give a few minutes, and only one take.

Connect. Find a way to tell your story in around 90 seconds. Also, have other stories about your experiences you can also share in 90-120 seconds. People won’t remember your skills – they’ll remember your story – your personality. Practice these as well – so many times that they don’t seem like you practiced them, but come off as natural, as a good memory you are recalling.

Believe me, I feel for you. Growing up a short redheaded kid on the wrong side of the tracks – I’ve been where you are now. Don’t curse the game – it’s here to stay. Adjust, learn how to play it better than those running it. Be better than those pretty brainless idiots you’re competing against. Capture the hearts of your tormentors. Embrace your trollness!

3 Things You Can Do To Increase Your Female Engineering Hires

Posted on March 22, 2013 by Tim Sackett

I run a small technical recruiting company. We hire mostly engineers and IT professionals. It’s a good group to go after – they’re educated and higher level wage earners which typically cascades itself into other traits that are nice to work with – career focused, courteous, responsible, etc. Because the technical demographic we go after – to be fair – it’s mostly men we have to deal with. As any company who is trying to hire technical professionals can attest it is really difficult to hire minorities and/or females in the technical disciplines. Tough, but not impossible!

The one thing we hear all the time from almost every company we work with is, “Hey, if you ever come across any female or minority engineers let us know – we would be interested.” Which begs the question – “Do you want me to find you a female or minority engineer?” Of course they do! But these good respecting HR Pros we work with will never say that because they think it’s against the law to say that. Which it isn’t. But they assume it is, because saying the opposite would be! (I.E., “Please don’t give us any female or minority engineers!”) I won’t say the name of our client, but one Fortune 500 manufacturer we work with does actually use us for minority hiring and will say very specifically what they want. Like they’re ordering a pizza! It doesn’t bother me, because I know what they are trying to do is ‘right’ – they are attempting to have a positive impact on their diversity – I can support that!

I saw this from Etsy recently on how they increased their female engineering hires by 500%! Don’t go crazy – it was 20 hires – but still impressive. Again, they’re a female dominated company, so as you can imagine that having female engineers was important to them, and you could probably also imagine females would be attracted to a female oriented company. From the article:

“Most technical interviews suck – fundamentally interviewers ask the question, “Quick, prove to me how smart you are!” “Smart” is not optional. “Quick” and “prove to me” are very rarely actually part of the job and you’re interviewing for the wrong thing – which generally sets up women for failure in the process…after two years, female engineers at Etsy are nearly 20% of the team, four and a half times what they numbered at the start of the initiative. When reached for comment, Etsy’s corporate communications would not comment on the current number of female engineering staffers, but told FORBES that the coming months would see the company making women a even bigger priority, particularly in the wake of the media coverage sparked by Elliott-McCrae’s presentation. After all, roughly 80% of the over 800,000 shops on the site are owned and operated by women. At a certain point, they should be represented from within the company’s ranks.”

So, how did Esty do it? How did they increase their female engineering hires? I’ll give you 3 things they did:

Step 1 Make it known publicly you want to hire women! Too many companies decide behind closed doors this is something they want to do in their organization, but then never go the next step and let their staff know, let their industry know, etc.! And not only that, but let your staff know why this is important!

Step 2 Don’t lower the hiring standard. The first thing most companies do when an initiative like this becomes hot, is lower the standard. “Oh, you want more women. Ok, you need to allow us to hire entry levels and from ‘B’ level schools!” Don’t do that, you’ll marginalize the entire program and your people and your candidates will know it!

Step 3 Put women in charge of hiring women. It’s Ok to have different hiring processes if they are both getting you, in the end, what you want as an organization. You can make two interview decks, one for woman and one for men, that are both still valid and reliable. It’s just hard, so 99.9% of you won’t do it. Have your female leaders interview your female candidates – they will do a better job at selecting female talent, especially if this is a huge organizational weakness you’re trying to correct!

The more you hire of any kind of person, they more your organization will start to take on those traits. The more women you hire, the easier it will be to hire more. It doesn’t happen overnight – but you can do it!

It’s Time To Change Your Employee Referral Program!

Posted on March 20, 2013 by Tim Sackett

The really cool thing about superheroes is that they are superheroes for a reason – they have someone who is their equal to compete against them. These competitors are the villains, and in the movies they’re doing bad things – but in real life these “villains” are only the bad guys and girls because they work for the competition.

So, how do you get your competitors talent to come over to your side and put on your company’s cape? A great employee referral program is the key.

FOT is back at it with the March installment of our monthly webinar series. This month, with the help from the heroes at Zao, HR SuperFriends Kris Dunn and Tim Sackett will be laying down seven strategies that are guaranteed to put your employee referral program on another planet. Join us Wednesday March 27 at 1pm ET and we’ll hit you with the following:

Seven surefire ways to engage your best employees and increase referrals (while ensuring your employees don’t refer SuperDuds!)
How to develop an internal communication strategy for your employee referral program.
The keys to sustaining your program long-term.
How and why trends like gamification can lead to better employee referral results.
The top three reasons 99% of employee referral programs fail and how you can make sure your employee referral program is delivering the goods all year long.

Don’t let your employee referral program fall to the Legion of Doom.

Register now for The SuperFriends: 7 Strategies to Get Your Superhero Employees to refer Their Arch Nemesis!

You Wish You Had Marissa Mayer As Your CEO!

Posted on March 19, 2013 by Tim Sackett

You know what I’ve learned in 20 years of being in HR? It’s really hard to find a CEO that is worth a damn! Really hard!

To find a CEO who is willing to make tough calls, difficult changes and push an organization outside it’s comfort zone without caving to the pressure of the previous culture. A CEO who is unrelenting in their beliefs of what it is going to take to make a difference for the organization they work for. A CEO that demands better.

All you Yahoo haters – or should I say Marissa Mayer haters – can suck it!

Mayer was criticized publicly by almost everyone for wanting to hire better – from The Star:

Yahoo Inc. chief executive Marissa Mayer was asked at an all-staff meeting several weeks ago whether her rigorous hiring practices had caused the company to miss out on top engineering talent in Silicon Valley’s hyper-competitive job market.

Mayer dismissed the complaint that she had refused good candidates because they did not have degrees from prestigious universities, and instead she challenged her staff to get better at recruiting, according to an employee who was at the meeting.

“Why can’t we just be good at hiring?” Mayer said

Mayer didn’t say – “I only want engineering talent if they come from prestigious universities”, what she said was “I only want great engineering talent AND I want them from prestigious universities”. She is raising the bar at Yahoo in terms of hires. Which will raise the bar in performance at Yahoo.

Look, I hear you haters that believe you can find great talent at ‘B’ level schools and even great talent that didn’t even go to college! I get it – I don’t disagree with you. But when you’re trying to build a world class organization and culture – you need to draw some lines in the sand. You need a vision. You need, at some point, to be ‘exclusive’ – not ‘inclusive’. To turn around an organizations culture, you need clear marching orders. This is exactly what Mayer has done. Which is very similar to other great leaders of our time. I’m not saying Mayer is a great leader – but she is following a pattern of behavior which follows many great leaders of our generation. Great talent, with a clear vision, will help you get better.

I find it comical that anyone would ever criticize a CEO for sharing a vision of wanting to hire and attract world class talent from some of the best universities in the world. Who truly believes that is a bad plan? While it might not the plan you’ve chosen for your organization – I love the fact that Mayer is willing to come out and publicly state what Yahoo’s recruitment direction will be – it puts the entire organization on notice. Kudos.

What say you Mayer haters? Let me have it in the comments.