Category Archives: Succession

Job Description Killers

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You know what position I would love to apply for!?  Jr. Human Resource Manager – said no one ever!

I hate spending 3 seconds on Job Descriptions – because JD’s just scream “Personnel Department” but I have to just take a few minutes to help out some of my HR brothers and sisters.  Recently, I came across a classic JD mistake when someone had posted an opening and then broadcasted it out to the world for a “Jr. Industrial Engineer”.  I almost cried.

Really!  No, Really!  “Jr.”  You actually took time, typed out the actual title and then thought to yourself – “Oh yeah! There’s an Industrial Engineer out there just waiting to become a ‘Jr. Industrial Engineer’!”  Don’t tell me you didn’t – because that’s exactly what it says.  “But Tim, you don’t understand – we’ve always called our less experienced Industrial Engineers, Junior, so we can differentiate them from our ‘Industrial Engineers’ and our ‘Sr. Industrial Engineers’.  What do you want us to to do, call them: Industrial Engineer I, Industrial Engineer II and Industrial Engineer III?”

No – I don’t want you to do that either.

Here’s what I want you to do.  I want you to title this position as “Lesser Paid Industrial Engineer” – you’ll get the same quality of responses!

You know how to solve this – but why you won’t – just have one pay band for “Industrial Engineer” – from $38K to $100K.  Pay the individuals within that band appropriately for their years of experience and education.  This is why you won’t do it.  Your ‘Sr.’ Compensation Manager knows you aren’t capable of handling this level of responsibility and within 24 months your entire Industrial Engineering staff would all be making $100K – Jr’s, Middles and Sr’s!

And please don’t make me explain how idiotic it looks when you list out your little number system on your post as well (Accountant I, Accountant II, etc.). Because you know there just might be an Accountant out there going – “Some day I just might be an Accountant II!” If SHRM actually did anything, I wish they would just go around to HR Pros who do this crap and visit their work place and personally cut up their PHR or SPHR certificates in front of them – like a maxed out credit card that gets flagged in the check out line.  That would be awesome!

All this does is make it look like you took a time machine in from a 1970 Personnel Department.

But, seriously, if you know of any Sr. Associate HR Manager III positions please let me know.

Ex-employers, Please Send Gifts!

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Dear Applebees,

I use to work for you in Human Resources.  It was a great 3 1/2 years, I loved working for you.  I was surrounded by the most talented group of Human Resource, Operations and Training professionals I’ve ever been around.  I tell this story often, but you know when you go into a large business meeting with like 20-40 people all sitting in a large square or circle of tables?  And you look around and you instantly see a couple of slugs, people who shouldn’t even be working for the company, let alone be in this meeting.  The first time I traveled to Applebee’s headquarters for a large operations meetings and I walked into the entire group of HR professionals that the Applebee’s leadership team had assembled, I looked around the room and couldn’t find one of those people!  Then it hit me – I’m that person – I’m the slug!  It was the coolest feeling to be challenged like that – to be surrounded by talented, caring people all working to make a company great.

I’ve moved on to bigger roles and a bunch of new experiences, but I still share so many things I learned while I was with you to those HR Pros I’m connected to.  I still talk so highly of the brand and the people that make your brand what it is today.  You’ve got some really great people still working for you, even after that crappy pancake place bought you.  You’ve lost some great ones as well – I could point out a number and where they are currently working and what their numbers are – who knows, they might want to come back.  You knows, maybe I want to come back.

Tell you what.  Why don’t you send me something. Just a little something to remind me of what I’m missing – a gift card, a free appetizer coupon, a carside to go Frisbee – you could even have someone drop off lunch to my office — grilled chicken oriental roll-up .  You see, I might want to come back, but no one has ever asked.  No letters, no phone calls, no tweets or Facebook messages.  I know I left you and that probably didn’t feel very good, but I think we can all be adults about this.  I had some growing up to do, I needed to see if those fries on the other side of the street really were hotter.   You can’t blame a guy for that.

So, who knows, we were so close once – and there’s nothing to say we can’t be close again,

Tim

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Just in case you are very lost at this point – check this out from Yahoo! Also, Marissa Mayer if you want to send me stuff, I’ll even think about coming over to Yahoo! Who knows – I like gifts!

In case you’re still lost: some of the best recruits you’ll ever get, are people who’ve already worked for you and were good, but you’ve never asked them to come back.

 

The A+ Player Employee

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I know a ton of HR/Talent Pros are sick of hearing employees broken down into A, B and C players.  It seems played out and dated.  But I like it.  I’m simple and the ABC player scenario is easy for me to describe, in very quick manner, how someone is performing.  I’ll give you, though, there are problems.  Once you have your “A” players, how do you tell which is the best one?  Can’t a “C” player be close to moving up to “B”, but another “C” be close to getting terminated?  The problem is, ABC doesn’t accurately enough describe individuals, it just describes groups of employees – a range of performance at any given snapshot in time.

I was having a conversation about this the other day with a peer and was describing a person’s performance who worked for me – an “A” player.  As I was describing this person, I said, “but you know what, they are better than an “A” player – they’re an “A+” player”!   Oh, boy, here we go.  What the heck is an A+ player?!

Traits of your A+ Players:

– All the talent and performance of your traditional “A” player, but with:

A.  Work like they’re a “B” player hungry to get to “A” status

B.  Lack the ego some “A” players tend to catch upon gaining “A” status

C.   Don’t believe they’ve reached “A” status, even when they have.

A+ players are special.  As soon as you read the traits you had an individual come immediately to mind.  That person who is a great performer, but also someone you wish all of your employees would emulate.  A person who is a joy to work with, and gets things done.  Maybe not the best at any single task – but the person you want to do every task.  A+ players aren’t culture changers, they are the culture.  Not everyone has an A+ player, and I don’t believe you can create one.  You usually have to hire them – and they ascend to A+ level very quickly.

When people tell me they only hire “A” players I tend to judge them as not having any idea about HR/Recruiting/Life.  You don’t hire “A” players.  You hire talent you believe is capable of becoming an “A” player within your organization.   Because they were an “A” player at another organization, has very little impact on their performance level within your organization – unless you somehow magically cloned their previous environment, leadership and resources and put them back into that same place.  It’s true that past performance is predictive of future performance – but only when you put that talent into a very similar circumstance.

That’s why it’s really hard to find A+ players, because you don’t even know when you hire someone if they will reach that level.  You might have a feeling – like – “oh boy, we’ve got someone special coming in”, but you don’t know, until you know.  All I really know is when you have one, do what you have to keep them around, because you’ll never know if you’ll get another one.

 

Uncommon Trait of a Great Leader

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For those who don’t know – I had great seats for the MSU vs. Iowa basketball game last week (see pic above of me being an idiot on national TV – it was AWESOME!).  My company, HRU, does a bunch of IT business with MSU and we are big supporters (yep, I now have the infamous “donor” tag at MSU) of MSU athletics – heck, our corporate headquarters is about 2 miles from campus and roughly 1/2 of my staff are Sparty grads.  All those things being put together – I was offered a chance to travel with the MSU basketball team to the Iowa game and got a chance to sit behind the bench for the game.

So, what does this have to do with Leadership Traits?  This is probably where you’ll believe I’ll go on and on about how great MSU Head Coach Tom Izzo (he’s also the guy on the front page of this blog in the pic with me) is – because he is – but you’re wrong.  The leader I want to talk about is one of the team captains from MSU, Russel Byrd (only a sophomore).  Here’s a kid who barely plays.  Was a highly recruited kid out of high school, but still hasn’t found his shot at the college level.  I think most of Spartan Nation was stunned when he was named one of the Captains for the 2012-12013 team.  How does a kid who rarely plays, become Captain of the team?

The uncommon trait of a leader – not being the most skilled.

Normally, in most organizations, the people who ascend to leadership positions, tend to be the most skilled, or pretty close to the most skilled.  It is very rare that a person is selected who isn’t the most skilled.  Why?  Traditional thinking says how can you lead people who are better than you.  The reality is, and we know this in HR, having high skill in a function and having the ability to lead in that same function – really have zero correlation.   No doubt, many great leaders are also highly skilled, but not always.

Back to my Spartys!  What I came away with from my trip with MSU Basketball was that Russell Byrd is a natural leader.  I called him the mayor, the entire trip – I might be his biggest fan now! He never missed an opportunity to engage with those traveling with him – his teammates, his coaches, the team managers, us tag-along donors, the hotel staff, etc.  It might be a handshake, eye contact with a wink and a smile or putting his arm around you and joking around.  He was encouraging, always, he kept a positive attitude even when his own performance, that night, wasn’t what he would have wanted.  While not having a good game, he set his own feelings aside, to pick up those on his team, who were more skilled, who needed some picking up.  He put his team, before himself.

When you think about succession in your organization, I wonder how many of us really look at one’s ability to lead vs. how skilled they are.  I immediately assumed Russell Byrd would not make a good Captain for his team, based on his skill level.  I think too often, those responsible for hiring leaders, do the same thing.  We pass over many of our most influential employees and give the job to the best performer – who often struggle in that role.  I’m not saying Byrd is a great leader because he’s not the most skilled, I’m saying he’s a great leader in spite of not being the most skilled.

Great skill does not equal great leadership.  Great leadership comes from having an ability to connect with people.

 

 

 

 

 

HR Can’t Forget Your Past

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What I’ve found in HR is that most great lessons are taught to you by the Spice Girls.

“If you want my future, forget my past”

So, I’m going to tell you what I want. What I really, really want.

I want you to understand this one little concept – HR has the memory of an elephant!  Seriously.  If you do something wrong, if you screw up once, don’t think your going to “work through it” and change their mind in the future.  It won’t happen.  HR loves to label employees.  Oh, Steve is our best sales guy – even though he hasn’t closed a deal in 3 years.  Mary is a drama queen – because she had drama 18 months ago, but nothing since.  Doesn’t matter – HR has you labeled!

So, what should you do?

If you screw up, if you already know you’ve been labeled, if you’ve been talked to more than once about a specific issue – you need to move on with your career to a new organization. Period.  Being talked to “more than” once is key.  You can live, organizationally, after being talked to once, because it might be forgotten.  Once you’re talked to twice, or more, it’s probably documented and thus you’ll have an organizational lifetime label (or OLL as we say in the business!).  O.L.L’s happen all the time.  Sleep with one subordinate, and now you’ll always be “that” creepy boss who sleeps with their employees.  Unless you marry that person – then you’ll be labeled positively as having ‘commitment’.  Unless, you then get divorced from that person because you slept with another employees – then you’re back to “creepy boss”.

It works that way on the positive side as well.  When I was working for Applebee’s we had a General Manager who had taken a ‘broken’ restaurant and turned it around to be a ‘star’ restaurant.  We actually moved this person to two other ‘broken’ restaurants to perform their ‘magic’, but they failed both times.  Still that person’s name was brought up every single time a ‘broken’ restaurant was brought up as needing someone to fix it.  What really happened was the first restaurant they fixed had more to do with the “team” that was put in place to fix that restaurant than that one person.  When that one person was put in other similar circumstances, with different teams, they failed.  Yet – the past followed this person around like they were Mr. Broken Restaurant Fixer.  You see – it works both ways – but with the same outcome – HR isn’t going to forget your past!

Here’s the real problem with this concept – you won’t find one HR person who will admit to it!  That’s why I say – if you really, really wanna zigazig ha – you need to move on.

It’s hard, but it’s fair

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I heard this quote recently, it was used by an old football coach to his players:

“It’s hard, but it’s fair.”

He wasn’t the first to use this and probably won’t be the last – but the line stuck with me because of how I don’t think many people in today’s age really think this way.  Many want to talk about what’s fair, few want to discuss the ‘hard’ part.  The football coach’s son described the meaning of what he feels the phrase means:

“It’s about sacrifice,” Toler Jr. said of the quote. “It means that that if you work hard that when it’s all said and done at the end of the day, it will be fair based on your body of work. It’s about putting in the time, making sure that you’re ready for the opportunity.”

I think we all think our parents are hard on us growing up.  I recall stories I tell to my own sons of my Dad waking me up on a Saturday morning at 7am, after I was out to late the night before, and ‘making’ me help him with something, like chopping wood or cleaning the garage out.  He didn’t really need my help, he was trying to teach me a lesson about choices.  If I chose to stay out late at night, it was going to suck getting up early to go to school.  He shared with me stories of his father doing the same thing – one night my Dad had gotten home late, so late, he didn’t even go to bed, just started a pot of coffee and waited for my grandfather to get up, figuring that was easier than getting a couple of hours of sleep and then hearing it from my grandfather the rest of the day.

As a HR Pro, we see this every day in our workforce.  There are some who work their tails off, not outwardly expecting anything additional, they’re just hard workers.  Others will put in the minimum, then expect a cookie. It’s a tough life lesson for those folks.  Most usually end up leaving your organization, believing they were treated unfairly, so they’ll go bounce around a few more times.  Eventually they’ll learn to put in the work, put in the time and more times than not, things work out pretty well.  Sometimes it won’t – so you go back to work even harder.  It’s been very rare in my 20 year HR career that I’ve truly seen a really hard worker get screwed over – very rare!  Do some idiots who don’t deserve a promotion or raise sometimes get it – yep, they sure do – but that doesn’t happen as much as you think.  The hard workers tend to get the better end of the deal almost always.

I hope I can teach my sons this lesson:  Life is going to be hard, but if you keep at it and put in the work, it’s going to be fair.  I think that is all we can really hope for.

HR’s Unwritten Rules

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Welcome back! How was your long holiday weekend?  I ate too much and watched a ton of sports – so mine was wonderful!

For those NFL/Professional Sports Fans out there I give you one of the dumbest unwritten sports rules that is out there:

You can’t lose your starting spot due to injury.

San Fransisco 49’ers starting Quarterback, Alex Smith, was injured recently and potentially could have come back this past week, but his ‘backup’ Colin Kaepernik did such a good job in the one game he started in place of Smith, that the coach decided his starter wasn’t quite ready to go and let’s give the backup another game! This got sports news, radio and fans talking about ‘the rule’ – if you’re the starter and you get injured, once you are better, you automatically get your starting job back.  But, why?  Where does this come from?

I can think of a couple of reasons why an organization might want to have this type of rule, in sports:

1. You don’t want players playing injured and not wanting to tell the coaches for fear if they get pulled, they’ll lose their job.  Thus putting the team in a worse spot of playing injured instead of allowing a healthy player to come in. Also, you don’t want the player furthering injuring themselves worse.

2. If the person has proven themselves to be the best, then they get injured, why wouldn’t you go back with the proven commodity?

I can think of more ways this unwritten rule makes no sense at all:

1. No matter the reason, shouldn’t the person with the best performance get the job?  No matter the reason the person was given to have his or her shot – if they perform better than the previous person, they should keep the job.

2. If you want a performance-based culture, you go with the hot hand.

3. Injuries are a part of the game, just as leave of absences are a part of our work environments, the organizations that are best prepared for this will win in the end – that means having capable succession in place that should be able to perform at a similar level, and if you’re lucky – at a better level.

It’s different for us in HR, right?  We have laws we have to follow – FMLA for example, or your own leave policies.  But is it really that different?  In my experience I see companies constantly make moves when someone has to take a personal or medical leave, and go a different direction with a certain person or position. Let’s face it, the truth is our companies can’t just be put on hold while someone takes weeks or months off to take care of whatever it is they need to do.  That doesn’t mean we eliminate them – we can’t – but we do get very creative in how we bring them back and positions that get created to ensure they still have something, but at the same time the company can continue to move forward in their absence.

I wonder if ‘our’ thinking about the NFL’s unwritten rule of losing your position comes from our own HR rules and laws we have in place in our organizations.  It would seem, like the NFL, most HR shops figure out ways around their own rules as well!

When is Gutting Payroll the Right Thing?

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HR-Sports Post Alert!

Many of you probably cared less about the recent trade between Major League Baseball’s Miami Marlins and Toronto Blue Jays (check out the details here) – suffice to say the Marlins were able to decrease their annual payroll from $188M to around $35M in one giant trade!  Classic rebuilding type of move, right?  People/fans are saying the Marlins shouldn’t do this to their fans and they gave up on some great talent.  Let’s take a look back at recent Florida/Miami Marlins history:

1997 – Won the World Series (payroll at $47.8M)

By 1999 – they gutted their roster of high priced talent for younger up and coming talent (payroll at $15.2M)

2003 – Won the World Series (Payroll at $76.9M)

By 2006 – they gutted their roster again (payroll at $15M)

The difference the Marlins and large market teams like the Yankees and Red Sox is that the Marlins can’t make giant financial talent mistakes without something major happening in the next year or two.  They took some gambles over the past couple of years trying to assemble a world series capable team (they’ve done this before – twice!) and it didn’t work out.  So, change needed to happen – rebuilding needed to begin.  Any fan of the Marlins could have predicted this.

So – what does this have to do with HR – or my company?

There is some huge wisdom in how the Marlins manage their talent finances that we can all learn from.  Let’s make no mistake about this – this is not Moneyball, in fact he might be the opposite of what Billy Beane had envisioned.  But, many would argue that the Marlins version, had worked out better, certainly from a results standpoint.  My question is – could this type of talent financing work in a corporate setting, or in your company?

Think about it that for a minute.

How could you make this happen?  I tend to think about it in terms of your high priced – A talent – not necessarily your executives.  What if your company was looking to drive and increase in market share in your industry.  Your main competitor currently had 50% of the market, while you only had 25%, with the other 25% spread amongst competitors 3-10.  Your goal was to grow your market share to 35% in 3 years – a large task for most companies in most industries.  Conventional corporate wisdom would work this way – Step 1 – we hire away one of competitor 1’s executives to tell how they did it; Step 2 – The new executive brings over as many people as he can get, usually starting with a solid player from competitor 1’s marketing department; Step 3 – you re-brand and spend a crap ton of money; Step 4 – 3 years later you’re at 28% market share with less margins. Ouch.

If the Marlins management ran your company here is what they would do:

Step 1 – Go hire the top sales person from your main competitors – all of your competitors and pay them double what they are making.

Step 2 – Go directly after every single account the competitors have with the inside knowledge you just gained in your sales staff.

Step 3 – Build their market share to 40% within 24 months

Step 4 – Systematically let go of all of their high priced sales people – losing about 5% of their market share.

Step 5 – At 3 year mark be at their 35% market share with roughly the same payroll as they had 3 years prior.

I mean it could happen that way!

We/HR/Management tend to believe we have to keep our people on forever – even after they stop being rock stars, but are still getting paid like rock stars.  The Marlins have said, ‘look this is a dual benefit play – we get our championships and the players gets a giant check, then we both move on’.  It’s not “traditional” so everyone tends to think its wrong.  I don’t know if it’s right, but I’m sure their are some Chicago Cub fans that would take 2 World Series championships in the last 15 years!

9 Wishes for New HR & Talent Professionals

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My favorite part of the fall conference season is the fact that I get to meet a ton of HR and Talent Pros and connect.  Of those, the ones I have the most fun talking to is the newbies!   They are still in that point in their career where HR is fun and exciting and they get jazzed up talking about the stuff we (older, I mean experienced HR Pros) no longer find as fascinating.   I usually find myself answering questions – you know the type – “how would you handle…?” or “what would you do…?”, etc.  Which gives me an opportunity to tell them here’s how I screwed it up when I first started, and here’s how I handle it now – which are usually very different.  So, as I reflect on this season I’ve come away with a few wishes for my fellow HR and Recruiting Pros who are just joining us on this journey.

I wish new…

 …HR pros would unlock the doors to their departments – wait – change that – actually take off the doors all together.

 …Corporate recruiters would make more outgoing calls then they get incoming calls.

 …HR pros would spend more than 50% of their time out of their office/cube walking around talking to employees and hiring managers.

 …Recruiters would never feel like it’s their responsibility to staff their companies – it’s not – it’s your leaders of your departments – you’re just the tool they use to accomplish it – but they’ve got to own it – ultimately they make the final decision, not you, which means it’s there responsibility.

 …HR pros never learn “soft” HR math.

 …Recruiters learn how to recruit before they learn how to build recruitment processes.

 …HR pros spend their first month (or more) in position actually working in operations, marketing and finance – it will make you a better HR pro!

 …Recruiters would build relationships with their main competition’s recruiters – this will make you better as well – and you won’t be giving away the corporate secrets!

 …HR pros would build more influence in their organizations than more process – one is easier to do – which is why you don’t do the other.

I guess I wish all of this stuff, because it’s stuff that I had to learn over time – and if I could have one wish for our newbie HR and Talent peers it would be they could have all of this knowledge up front as they come in the door.  Because I can’t have that wish – I’ll throw out a challenge to my HR brothers and sisters – take a new HR pro under your wing – it doesn’t have to be in your organization – just find one and do it.  Here’s what you’ll find – they will help you more than you’ll probably help them – helping a newbie will energize yourself, help you slow down on your own decision making and reflect on what you’re doing and its importance – and because of your experience it will allow you to go out and make some adjustments to your own shop that will have great impact to your business!

A Conversation: with your Least Engaged Employee

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You: “Hey, Lee (Least Engaged Employee) – how are you doing?”

Lee: “You know, working hard, hanging in there, one day at a time” (winky face)

You: “We need to talk.” (this is what all HR Pros say, it’s #1 in the “What to say when you’re in HR” handbook)

Lee: “About what?” Now, somewhat nervous because HR never talks about positive stuff.

You: “You know, it just doesn’t seem like you’re real excited about your job, or the company, I’m not sure.” Classic HR beating around the bush – also in the handbook

Lee: “No, really (deadpanned) I love it here.” Voice trailing off as he looks for a way out of this nightmare

You: “Well, that’s a relief because we love having you here.” Being able to effectively lie to yourself and employees – Handbook page 27.

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It’s funny because it’s to close to the truth for too many HR Pros and Hiring Managers.  We want engagement, but we have no idea how to talk to a person who isn’t engaged.  Let’s try one more script between you and Lee.

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You: “Lee, I need to talk to you about something that I’m very concerned about.” Set the tone immediately – it is serious – Lee’s position hangs in the balance.

Lee: “Sure. What is it?” No one ever turns down talking with HR – what choice do they really have…

You: “I’ve noticed that your lack of engagement with your job, with the organization is starting down a path that isn’t going to end well.”

Lee: “What do you mean!? I love my job, and the company.” This is what low engagement employees say, because they aren’t showing it.

You: “No you don’t.  If you did, I and your manager would be seeing this out of you: example, example, example.”

You: “So, we have 3 choices: 1. Continued lying to each other until we fire you; 2. Continue lying to each other until you leave on your own; or 3. We fix it.”

Lee: “I’m not lying – let’s fix it.” Lee just told you 2 lies in that small statement – Lee is lying and Lee probably won’t fix it without major help

You: “So, tell me why are you no longer engaged?”  Then shut up, wait, wait an uncomfortably long amount of time for Lee to speak.

Lee: “Lame reason I think you want to hear to get you off my back, and back to my desk so I can update my resume on Monster.”

You: “No, really, why?” More uncomfortable silence

Lee: “Something closer to the truth you both already knew.”

You: “Now, let’s come up with how we can turn this ship around.”

You and Lee: “Plans, promises, measures, next meetings followup dates, morning hugs, etc.”

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We tend to treat our least engaged employees like a virus.  Stay away, wash our hands of it and hope it goes away.  Rarely do we ever really go out and “engage” our least engaged employees.  Seems like too much work, too much time, too much of headache.  It is.  It is also the only way to move in the direction you want to go, the fastest.  That direction might be to turn the employee around, or it might be to kick them off your buss – either way – the conversation must be had appropriately to move in that direction.

Have you talked to Lee lately?