Category Archives: Stud Muffin

5 Steps To HR Success

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Yo! I’m on vacation this week, don’t try and come rob my house, it’s a ‘staycation’!  I’m going to run some oldies but goodies so I can let my creative juices focus on Gin and Tonics. Here you go:

I was reminded last night that success doesn’t just come to you, and it might not necessarily be about hard work and attitude – like your Dad would always say.  To often we (the collective lot of us!) want to believe success is like the lotto – at least to often we hope to get success that way – one day you don’t have success, then the next day success somehow miraculously finds you!

Sorry. Doesn’t usually work that way.

But one thing we over look is how important success is to finding success.  Here’s what I mean:

Directions for Being Successful –

Step 1: Find a little success

Step 2: Find another little success

Step 3: Find another little success

Step 4: Repeat steps 2 and 3 each day

Step 5: You are successful

I know, directions are hard to follow for some people, so let me give you an example.  You feel like a failure at everything – job is going well (or you don’t have one), relationships suck, you’re a little soft around the middle (i.e., fat) – basically you feel like a failure, nothing is going in the right direction.  Guess what? When you wake up tomorrow you won’t magically be successful – no matter how hard you wish it, pray it, want it.  You have to find some sort of success, no matter how small.  Maybe that success is eating one less Twinkie than you did the day before – yesterday I ate 8 Twinkies – today I only ate 7!  Don’t let someone tell you that’s not a success, because tomorrow I’m only going to eat 6 and before you know it I’m going to kick this Twinkie habit!

I works with everything.  Not recruiting enough candidates for your organization, can’t get anyone to pick up the phone and talk to you – today make one more call than you did yesterday – only 1 – that is a success, because tomorrow you’re going to do that again, 1 more than the day before – small success steps until you’re just one big giant bag full of success!

People who are successful and throw it in your face suck!  They suck because they act like they’ve always been successful, but they haven’t.  It came to them a little at a time, until they could no longer feel what failure felt like.  You see success is like a drug – you need a little to want another hit, it’s addictive.  That’s why you need to feed your mind a little everyday – we can all find those little successes each day – the key is to find them every single day – don’t miss.

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!

Success vs. Development

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I something really cool happen recently. My oldest son plays high school baseball and his team went on a long run to the Michigan High School baseball championships and made it to the final four. It was really fun. The local community came out in droves. Big crowds. High pressure situations. Cheers and tears. Quintessential local small town high school team does good story, ends one game short.

My son was the last out of the final game, with the game tying run on third base. He hit the ball for an out. Literally, one step from glory. So many people came to us offering condolences for his ‘failure’. He must be crushed. He must be so down. One at bat meaning so much. Ironically, in the game prior he hit in the game tying run and the game winning run in extra innings.

The funny thing was he wasn’t upset at all. He looked at it not in terms of success or failure, but in terms of development. You don’t get many opportunities to be in that situation. He didn’t get it done this time, but the ‘next’ time he still wants the bat in his hands when it happens. He compartmentalized this ‘one’ at bat as development. Not success or failure.

He had 150 at bats during the year and failed 60% of the time. While this at bat was obviously at a crucial time for team success, he treated it as every other at bat he’s had. Try to get yourself into a positive hitters count, and swing at the best pitch you can. You’ll fail 60-70% of the time in baseball, if you’re a really good player! Failure is guaranteed over the long run – if you view it, in only that one way.

He started his club baseball season the next day. More at bats, more games, more development. More chances to fail. Or more chances to develop and get better.

I wonder how much better our organizations would be if we could take on this mentality? It’s about getting better each time, not closing the sale, successful projects, better profit and margins, but incrementally getting better little by little.

Would You Pay A Candidate To Interview?

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

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

Cool, right!?

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

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

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

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

– How would you know these people were serious?

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Tim Sackett Commencement Speech

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It’s that time of year when universities and high schools go through graduation ceremonies and we celebrate educational achievements.  It’s also that time of year when you get bombarded with every great commencement speech ever given.  There is clearly a recipe for giving a great commencement speech.  Here are the ingredients:

1. Make the graduates feel like they are about to accomplish something really great, and not just become part of the machine.

2. Make graduates believe like somehow they will be difference makers.

3. Make graduates think they have endless possibilities and opportunities.

4. Make graduates think the world really wants and needs them and can’t wait to work with them.

5. Wear sunscreen.

I think that about sums up every great commencement speech ever given.  Let’s face it, the key to any great speech is not telling people what they need to hear, but telling them what they want to hear!

I would like to give a commencement speech.  I think it would be fun.  I like to inspire people.  Here’s the main topics I would hit if I were to give a commencement speech:

1.  Work sucks, but being poor sucks more. Don’t ever think work should make you happy.  Find happiness in yourself, not what you do.

2.  You owe a lot of people, a lot of stuff.  Shut your mouth and give back to them. Stop looking for the world to keep giving you stuff.

3.  No one cares about you. Well, maybe your Mom, if you had a good Mom.  They care about what you can do for them.  Basically, you can’t do much, you’re a new grad.

4.  Don’t think you’re going to be special. 99.9% of people are just normal people, so will you.  The sooner you come to grips with this, the sooner you’ll be happy.

5.  Don’t listen to your bitter parents.  Almost always, the person who works the hardest has better outcomes in anything in life.  Once in a while, a person who doesn’t work hard, but has supremely better talent or connections than you, will kick your ass.  That’s life. Buy a helmet.

6.  Don’t listen to advice from famous people.  Their view of the world is warped through their grandiose belief some how they made it through hard work and effort. It’s usually just good timing.

7. Find out who you care about in life, and make them a priority.  In this world you have very few people you truly care about, and who care about you in return.  Don’t fuck that up.

8.  Make your mistakes when you’re young.  Failure is difficult, it’s profoundly more difficult when you have a mortgage and 2 kids to take care of.

9.  It’s alright that sometimes you have to kiss ass.  It doesn’t make you less of a person.

10.  Wear sunscreen.  Cancer sucks.

So, do you feel inspired now!?  Any high schools or colleges feel free to email me, I’m completely wide open on my commencement speech calendar and willing to give this speech on a moments notice!

 

SHRM Releases Their New Certification Designations!

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So, currently you have a PHR (Professional of Human Resources), or a SPHR (Senior Professional of Human Resources), or a GPHR (Global Professional of Human Resources) from HRCI.  SHRM announced it was launching it’s competency based program of certified HR professionals, and the one thing everyone wants to know is what are my new letters going to be!?!?

Hello, My Name is Tim Sackett, SPHR.  But not for much longer, soon I’ll acquiesce to the new SHRM certification because that’s what we do as HR Pros, we give in and take it.

I like having letters after my name.  It makes me feel important, even though only HR people have any idea what they mean.  I’ve always known the letters were a little bit of a fraud.  I got my SPHR without every working in HR.  I can say that now because the statue of limitations has run out on SHRM legally taking away my SPHR, plus my SPHR is now worthless in the eyes of SHRM so they could care less about it!  In 2001 I accepted my first corporate HR gig, after working at a recruiting agency for eight years. I sat for and received my SPHR, without technically ever working in HR.  I did have eight years of recruiting experience, which mostly consisted of sales.

Either way, I felt proud to have letters behind my name.  This is why I’m super excited when SHRM chose my little old blog to make such a super big announcement of their new designations!  Here are the new SHRM Certification Designation letters (if they allowed me to choose them):

HRN – Human Resource Ninja – The HRN designation is for HR Pros who actually get something done, and you never have to hear about it.  That shit just happened and nobody knows how it happened. That’s because it was done by an HR Ninja!

SHRN – Sr. HR Ninja – Like the HRN, the SHRN gets stuff done without needing acknowledgement, but also without notice gets rid of horrible performing employees and leaders, never to be heard from or seen again.  Cold HR killers.  You need to get rid of an under-performing employee? Call a SHRN!

CHRR – Corporate HR Recruiter – The CHRR is a designation for those folks who work in corporate recruiting but don’t actually recruit, but they do a lot of stuff that sounds like recruiting, but isn’t really recruiting, because they don’t really want to recruit, they want to be in HR.  Is that clear?

SCHRR – Sr. Corporate HR Recruiter – The SCHRR is savvy enough to not only not doing any real recruiting, they’ve made a career out of coming up with analytics to prove how good of a non-recruiter recruiter they really are.  The SCHRR is also tech savvy enough to find programs that will endlessly post and pray, so now they can find ways to use Pinterest to not recruit great talent.

NHRBP – Not HR Business Partner – The NHRBP is someone who is so strategic, so business savvy, they aren’t actually considered to be in HR any longer.  A NHRBP can actually run your company. They know everything: Operations, Finance, Marketing, Sales, etc.  Just don’t ever ask them to plan a picnic, organize your annual United Way drive or send flowers to a grieving employee, because they don’t do that!

SNHRBP – Sr. Not HR Business Partner – Or as we like to call it- The CEO.  Moving forward SHRM will now push that every single CEO in the world get their CNHRBP certification.

HRGP – HR Global Professional – The HRGP is like the current GPHR but we moved the letters around. This is for those people who fell into HR and traveled overseas in either high school or college and decided they would rather live outside of America.  We don’t understand them either, but American companies like to feel like the people they send overseas to offend other countries have some insights, so here you go.  No SHRGP will be offered because why.

PhDP – The Doctor of People – I had to do this one for my professor friends who teach HR – hello Matt Stollak and Marcus Stewart! The only way you can get this designation is by spending most of your life at university and actually getting a PhD, and teaching HR classes every Tuesday and Thursday from 9am to 10:30am.  I might actually go back to school because having a PhDP would be the coolest designation ever!

I can’t wait to use my SHRN designation! Thanks Hank!

 

 

3 Ways To Make Your Office Productive During March Madness

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For those that know me, I’m a huge basketball fan.  Pro, college, AAU, high school, hell, if you really dig into my past you would probably find me hanging out at some playground breaking down the defense effort of a pickup game between grade school kids.  So, when March Madness time comes around each year I’m like many of your employees.  I’m trying to find the best ways to work and watch basketball, or at the very least stay up on my brackets and see who is getting upset!

With all the hype over the past few years about lost productivity, do to March Madness, in the workplace.  I felt it was my duty to provide HR Pros with some helpful tips and tricks to get the your staff to highly productive during this time of year.  Here’s my ideas:

1. Put up TVs throughout the office.  Let’s face it, you really only have one or two hoops junkies in the office, and those folks usually spend vacation time to ensure they don’t miss a minute.  Everyone else just wants to see scores and highlights.  They’re a casual fan.  They’re willing to work a perfectly normal day, and will probably be just a productive, if not more, with the TVs steaming all the games in the background.  Plus, if you get a close game or big upset, you’ll get some team excitement in the air.  This also stops most of your staff trying to stream the games on their desktops for the entire afternoon.

2. Call off work those afternoons.  Let’s face it, March Madness is pretty close to a national holiday as we will ever get.  Doesn’t matter if you’re female or male, young or old, what religion you are, we all love the drama and excitement of March Madness.  Just close the office.  Make a deal with your staff to reach certain goals and if they’re met, take them to the local watering hole yourself and have some fun with it.  Employees like to rally around a fun idea.  You don’t have to make everything fun, all the time, but once in a while it helps to lift productivity.

3. Shut off all access.  Yep, you read that correctly. Have IT shut down all access to anything related to March Madness.  Threaten to fire any employee caught checking scores on their smart phone, or calling a friend to see how it’s going.  Fear!  Fear is a great short-term lifter of productivity.  Whether we like to admit it, or not, it’s true.  If you went out right now into your office and told the entire staff at the end of the day you’re firing the least productive person, you would see productivity shoot through the roof!  You would also see about half your staff, the half you want to keep, put in their notice over the next 4-6 weeks.

The reality is, most people will do business as usual.  While the CNNs of the world love to point to the millions of dollars American corporations lose during March Madness, it’s no different than so many things that can consume our thoughts in any given day.  I do think HR and leadership, each year, lose out on a great way to have fun and raise engagement during March Madness.  It’s something most of your staff has some interest in, and depending on your city and the schools your employees went to, it can get heightened pretty significantly.

For the record, I’m not picking Michigan State.  I want to with all my might, but I’m nervous that my bracket mojo would work the opposite, so I’ll pick someone else, and feel awesome when Sparty wins and I lose my bracket!

 

It’s not a Bromance, It’s a Promance!

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Bromance –

“A bromance is a close non-sexual relationship between two (or more) men, a form of affectional or homosocial intimacy. “

Basically a Bromance is two dudes who really, really like each other, but not in a romantic type of way.   It’s like girls can be ‘besties’ but guys can’t.  So, if guys are ‘besties’ and acting a little to close, they’ll be told they’re having a ‘Bromance’.

Professionally this is called a ‘Promance’.

Promance –

“A promance is close non-sexual relationship between two (or more) coworkers, a form of affectional or homosocial intimacy.”

Basically a Promance is coworkers who are best friends at work, but might not actually be that close outside the work place.  This sometimes has been called ‘Work Wife’ and/or ‘Work Husband’, but it can also between coworkers of the same sex.   The fact is we spend a great deal of time with our coworkers and become very close to many of them.  But we also have life outside of work, sometimes that includes coworkers, sometimes it does not.

Promances allow us to have close relationships with coworkers we actually like.  Promances are what keep coworkers staying at companies, sometimes, far longer than they would have if no promance was in place.  It also causes multiple coworkers to leave, or follow, each other to other companies.  “My promance just got a job at Ford, I’m going to follow her over there, we work great with each other!”

The cool thing about Promances is that they’re really only defined by work hours.  There is no expectation from a promance that you’ll actually communicate outside of work hours, and no one feels slighted by this!  It’s like the relationship you always wished you could have with everyone! “So, you mean like when we’re together we can be totally cool and hangout and just be great, but when we aren’t together neither one of us is going to feel an obligation towards communicating with the other!? Okay, I’m in!”

There is a fine line that you have to be careful with, as Promance can turn into a Bromance if you’re not careful.  It usually starts with happy hour or the company softball team, and quickly begins to spiral out of control.  It’s when boundaries of work hours no longer matter, and you begin to spend non-work hours with your Promance.  Many times this becomes too much.  All of sudden you’ll find yourself sitting on your coach on a Sunday night watching a game and saying things like “okay, I’ll see you in the morning at work” and realizing you’ve never stopped seeing that person, ever!

I love Promances.  I’ve got a wife and three sons, very full out of work life.  Promances are perfect for me.  I can have all of these relationships at work, and go home and not have those relationships interfere with my home relationships.  It’s truly the best of both worlds!

The Mt. Rushmore of HR and Talent Bloggers

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I’m a sports geek and recently the sports talk shows and Twitter have been blowing up over The Mt. Rushmore of the NBA.  This happened because Lebron James came out and said he wants to be on the Mt. Rushmore of the NBA when his career is done.  His current NBA Mt. Rushmore is: Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Oscar Robinson.  The reality is, is had no bearing on anything, but people love to argue the concept!  Why Oscar? What about Russell or Wilt?! Wouldn’t you put Lebron on it right now!? It’s a never ending argument that sports geeks, like me, love to have.

The Mt. Rushmore got me to thinking about my own world and the Mt. Rushmore of HR and Talent Bloggers.  People can start the argument with just the title! Why not just HR? Aren’t those two separate mountains!?  I don’t think so. While there are thousands of bloggers in the space, I don’t differentiate the two, because to me Talent is part of the HR function, not a separate thing (although I do think it will be out of HR in the future!).

So, here is my Mt. Rushmore of HR and Talent Bloggers:

– Kris Dunn – Mostly HR, writes every freaking day for the past 5+ years at the HR Capitalist and Fistful of Talent, has great opinions on topics, ties in pop culture, sports, politics, etc. He entertains and educates. First and foremost he is and has been an actual practitioner in the field – he has gotten his hands dirty cleaning up after an employee picnic, had to do I-9 audits, design hiring processes, facilitate on-boarding and open enrollment meetings. KD knows your world and knows how to give you information to help you get better at what you do.

 – Jessica Merrill-Miller – Jessica is one of the few HR blogger types who has actually made this a paying career.  Also a one-time real HR person, over the past few years she now only blogs and consults, but is a content machine with great opinions, and super helpful advice to HR pros, candidates and leadership alike.  JMM loves this stuff!  In fact, I would put money down that if you made JMM chose between Blogging4Jobs.com (her website) and her husband, it would be a quick divorce! You feel her passion when you read her stuff and go to her site.  Everyone wants to make money blogging, but no one puts in the time and effort that JMM does.

 – Glen Cathey – Many will know Glen by his site Boolean Blackbelt.  Glen gets recruiting and sourcing at a completely different level than 99.9% of people in this industry, and that isn’t an exaggeration!  While some will be intimidated by his writing – it can get technical – the information he provides is more valuable than a Master’s degree in HR.  Also, he does have a beginners guide to get people started, and he loves to use screen shots of what he’s doing to help visual learners.  Of all the people I read, Glen puts the most effort into his posts. Super detailed, great research, it’s like my own personal training guide on how to find talent better and faster – and he just keeps delivering!  Glen is also a working Talent pro – so he’s giving you real, live up-to-date stuff. Not something he did 10 years ago and is still trying to sell as relevant.

 – Laurie Ruettimann – While LFR is currently on blogging hiatus, or sabbatical, or vacation, it really doesn’t matter – she’s the queen of HR blogging.  No one is more opinionated and spot on, usually, with those opinions.  That’s why I love her writing – she can make me laugh and not like her all in the same post.  That’s what a great blogger does, she challenges the way you think.  LFR is the also the only HR/Talent blogger I know who can talk about her bathroom habits and have a thousand people comment. She’s got a great audience and the HR folks love to read her take on things.  She the prototypical anti-HR lady, who was an HR lady, lady.  She’s a CHRO, who decided not to be a CHRO.  For those who need a LFR fix – she has a Tumbler, or you can read her years of content still up at The Cynical Girl.  

People always want to know who I read – it’s these four consistently.  I also read all the folks at Fistful, I think they’re all great as well.  Who would be on your Mt. Rushmore of HR and Talent Bloggers?

 

It’s My Birthday, Biatch!

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Yeah, it’s my birthday, if we were really close friends you would have already known that and sent me something cool like Diet Mt. Dew or a Sprinkles Cupcake.  But you didn’t, so I wrote this stupid blog post as a birthday present to myself.  That’s what happens when you turn 33, you give yourself a present, like an adult.  Actually, I’m 44.  I don’t get why people get all upset to talk about their age.  I look at it as I’m one year closer to moving in with my kids and making their life miserable, paybacks are bitch boys!

Actually, I’m fairly certain that with the massive amounts of Diet Dew I drink I’m headed on a path to Alzheimer’s, and I don’t say that to make fun, it’s just a fact. You can’t put that many chemicals in your body and not think something will happen.  I’m very self aware. I think it’s probably a blessing in disguise to my kids. They can put me in a home, and I won’t know the difference either way.  All I ask, remember it’s my birthday, is you put me in a home that has a lake or a pond.  I like sitting by the water, even it I won’t know why.

Anyway, my wife asked me what I want.  Which is a little like asking ‘what do you want me to allow you to buy yourself’, which I appreciate, because she gets me.  If I’m going to have to get something for my birthday, I might as well like it!  At 44 there isn’t really anything material I need, so here’s the list of things I would want for my birthday in no particular order:

1. To be left alone in the house with a gin and tonic and an NBA game on.  So I can fall asleep without interruption.

2. For someone in my family to take my kids, so my wife and I can have a solid 24 hours together without having to make a meal, do a load of laundry or pick up shoes, coats, backpacks, empty food wrappers, socks, empty cups, etc.

3. For you to listen to this white kid do the rap from TLC’s Waterfalls –

Now you know what a 17 year old Tim Sackett was like.

Happy Birthday to me kiddos!