Category Archives: Succession

Launch and Learn

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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.

 

It’s Time To Change Your Employee Referral Program!

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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! 

Do You Offer Unique Employment Experiences?

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It is said that:

“Experiences are the new Luxury goods.”

Think about what people are paying for –

  • Navy Seal inspired Bootcamp
  • Tough Mudder
  • Marathons
  • Haunted House Vacations
  • Survival Vacations
  • The Death Race
  • To be challenged mentally and physically beyond anything they have ever experienced!

We are spending our free time and our hard earned money, not on relaxation, but on experiences that we will never have or find in our daily life.  Experiences that make us feel good about ourselves – doing things we thought we would never be able to do.

Why?

You could go out and buy yourself a new Rolex for $5,000 or you could backpack across the desert over two weeks in brutal conditions.  Which one would you remember most?  Which one would you talk about more? Which one would make you most proud of yourself?  Experiences are the new Luxury goods.

I’ve thought about this recently in terms to employee engagement and loyalty.   In my company we have had a Sales Retreat a number of times in our history.  We don’t have one each year, but we’ve had a number of them in our history.  It’s part education, part team building, part motivation, part party.  Everyone of them offers a great ’employment’ experience and they are talked about often, months and years later.  During these retreats – no sales happen, no recruiting happens, our normal daily work stops.  Yet, these are the experiences my team remembers most.  Same with the chili cook-offs, the football tailgates, the Friday after-work happy hours.  We laugh, we share, we learn more about each other than we knew before.

My recruiters also get to travel to client sites – some are close, within driving distance – some they have to fly to.  All of them love going to meet with clients at their locations, seeing their operations, meeting the people face-to-face.  Maybe not totally ‘unique’ – but different from their daily tasks for sure.  This doesn’t happen weekly, maybe not even monthly – but they all get to get out from time to time.

I’m wondering how often do you give your employees unique experiences?  It doesn’t have to trips or picnics.  It can be something that fits right into your daily operations and your employees development plans.  These experiences can all be tied right to the betterment of your business.  Think about that up and coming leader who just isn’t that well known.  How hard would it be to have that person co-present at your next department meeting or even at a board meeting!  While that might not ‘challenge’ you – it might challenge the heck out of them!  What about having your HR Director go on a sales call with your VP of Sales?  And not just sit there, but have one portion of the sales presentation they have to answer to!

Unique experiences challenge people.  They challenge people to sharpen their saw, to get out of their comfort zone and stay engaged with your business.  It’s something money or extra benefits can’t touch.  Unique experiences are priceless.  They don’t cost of anything, yet it’s one of the most valuable things we have to offer.  Great leaders and great HR Pros can make these experiences happen.  It doesn’t have to be a crazy position description or job design, it just has to be different from what the person normally does.  An average day for one of your operations leaders, could be a crazy day for one of your marketing associates, and vice verse.

 

Have A Poor Performer, Call Their Parents!

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It’s a different world we live. 30 is the new 20, which makes 20 the new 10, which makes me, still old.  I’ve mentioned this before, and people always felt like it was always tongue in cheek, but I think it’s time as HR pros and leaders we start having parents in on our performance conversations. I’m serious!  I have a great real-life example from the world of the NBA. Klay Thompson, a member of the Golden State Warriors, was involved in a fight recently and fined $35,000. No big deal, right? Typical NBA pro sports behavior. But, wait! His dad, former NBA player Mychal Thompson, keeps his son’s finances and “grounded” him from his weekly allowance! From the Bleacher Report:

“The 23-year-old doesn’t have access to his money, all cheques are paid to Mychal and Julie who take care of his accounts for him to make sure Klay’s financial situation is set up for his post NBA career. So, naturally, Papa Thompson’s going to teach Klay a lesson of his own by fining him personally also, however Klay will find out the old fashioned way.

“He will [find out he’s been fined by us] when he sees that cash envelope show up a little short this week,” he said.”

23 years old.  How many young 20’s do you have working in your office?  How many of those young 20’s and late 20’s and possibly 30’s – could use a little wake up call from Mom and/or Dad!?

If HR has taught me anything, it’s most leaders are terrible at holding their employees accountable and managing performance.  It’s not getting better, it’s gotten worse over the past 5 years.  Most organizations eliminated or reduced leadership training during the recession, so our leaders haven’t gotten better, they’ve gotten worse.  We can start spending a ton of resources to train them and get them up to speed – or – we could just hand them Billy’s Mom’s number and have her come by the office one day.  Kind of like a conference at school!

“Mrs. Sackett, we are glad you could take time out of your busy day to talk about Timmie.  You see, Timmie is a little…well, let’s say Tim’s performance isn’t where it should be for someone of his age, experience and education. I was hoping you might be able to help me get Tim back on track.  Here are some examples of what Tim’s been doing…”

Can you imagine how 99% of those poor performers involved in this conversation would change!?  We laugh because it seems absurd that we would have to call in someone’s parents to adjust their performance, but I truly think in the right circumstance, it could really work.  I’ve seen it work well with good performance.  I’ve had a past boss speak to my mother about my good performance and she lite up like a Christmas tree, made me feel proud.  After that happen to me, I did it with some employees who worked for me, with the same result.  If it works so well on the positive side – why should we dismiss it wouldn’t work on the correction side?

Before you let go of your next poor performer – do me one favor – make one more call – one last ditch effort – call Mom and Dad in for a meeting.

Don’t Ask Me To Take Less Money!

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I love pro sports – football, basketball, baseball – it doesn’t matter, I love watching the best athletes in the world compete against each other.  I also love watching college sports – but for a different reason.  Pro sports and college sports are different.  One is a business of entertainment and one is competition.  While their is an element of competition in pro sports – the bottom line business proposition is still to entertain.  99% of college sport athletes will never go on to become pro sport athletes and get paid for playing the game they love.  They play for a number of reasons, the biggest one is that they love playing the game and they love the competition.  Some pro sports athletes also do this – but if they weren’t being paid, most would not be putting their bodies through the punishment they do. Still, there talent is awesome and it’s why we pay big bucks to see them ‘perform’.

That is why I love the Tom Brady story.  An all-pro NFL quarterback who takes less money then he could get on the open market, so his ‘team’ can go out and get better talent for him to play with and possibly compete for future Super Bowls.  Great pro athlete story.  Here’s the breakdown from the NY Times:

“Brady took a deal that will pay him well below the market rate for a quarterback of his caliber at a time when the Patriots and every other team are struggling to manage against a salary cap that is expected to remain nearly flat for several years.

Brady is now under contract through the 2017 season, when he will be 40. But the contract will pay him just $27 million, far below the annual $20 million that is the current average for the game’s top quarterbacks. The terms of the contract were first reported by Sports Illustrated.

Brady also took a below-market deal in 2005, with the thought that he wanted to give the Patriots the chance to sign and keep other players. That is what drove his decision-making this time, too.”

I love when guys from the teams I root for do this because of all the reasons Brady is doing this.  When anyone turns down millions of dollars to make your organization better – that means something! But, this doesn’t make it right for everyone!

Let’s face some facts.  Brady has more money then he’ll ever need, a super-rich wife and incredible earning power after sports in the broadcast booth.  He can take the pay cut and not flinch.  The problem with these kinds of stories is that companies believe you should be willing to do the same thing.  “Hey Tim, we need you to take a $10K cut to help us out through this rough patch we’re facing.”  Um, No!  I’m not Tom Brady – and I’m guessing you aren’t either – pay cuts in ‘real’ life, don’t work.  Yet, we see organizations, even our own government, trying to do this.  It’s a disaster.   Don’t get me wrong – I understand why organizations do this.  If the alternative is to go out of business – I’m going to offer up some pay cuts.  The reality, though, is this a downward spiral of doom – 99.9% of organizations that force pay cuts don’t make it.

They don’t make it because the good people, the real talent, bail as fast as possible.  Leaving you less talented, under paid, desperate employees – that is not a recipe for success.  So, what can you do?  Do more with less.  Don’t cut everyone – just eliminate the lowest performers and keep the pay at where it should be.  People are willing to pick up more if they feel like it truly is going to make a difference. Cutting pay, across the board, only demotivates the entire staff, further compounding your problem of survival.  As an HR Pro don’t allow yourself to be pulled into this leadership trap – it won’t work.

HR – An Autopsy

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HR is Dead. I got called yesterday to come down and ID the body.

They ran an Autopsy to discover the cause of death and to know one’s surprise they found a number of issues, including:

–Deficient creativity – apparently HR bored itself to death.  So caught up in ‘creating’ process, it forgot what ‘creating’ actually meant.

–Lack of Soul – Organizations need that immortal essence that is given by it’s people.

–Formality Glutinous –  To be stuffed so much with formality that you explode from the inside that people can’t stand being around you.

–Analysis Paralysis – Stuck in indecision unable to move forward surrounded by so many metrics.

–Feline Rabies – Yep, in the end, having 4+ cats on average, did in HR.

HR wont’ be missed by many.  The fact is not many really knew HR.  For years locked behind a department door that had not only a keycode to gain entry, but a palm and retinal scanner as well – security of your employee files being of the utmost importance to the organization.  Where we once knew them from the annual company picnic, alas, it has been years since HR was willing to plan that employee event.  Even our annual open enrollment meetings were cancelled for online, interaction-less, enrollment – efficiency over relationship.  Survey Monkey engagement surveys, email follow-up, phone screen interviews – some have questioned was HR really ever a person at all.  One time, through the sliding window, I once spoke to someone, “Here” I said, as I handed in an exchange of address form, “Thanks” she said.  HR seemed friendly enough.

I don’t mean this to be an anthem to a dead profession, but let’s face it – HR as we have known it, thankfully, is almost there.  I’m asked frequently – “What’s the future of HR?” and I say, “HR will change organizations more than any other single functional area in business.  We have ways to hire a more talented workforce.  We have ways to increase engagement of our workforce. We can increase performance and productivity that has a direct bottom-line impact.  We can make the workers we have better, faster, stronger.  The future of HR – won’t be like ‘HR’ at all.”  But let’s forget the future.  Let’s focus on the present. Let’s make HR not HR.  Let’s make HR everything we want it to be.

Let HR be technology leaders. Let HR be financial leaders. Let HR be Performance leaders.  Let HR be operational leaders.  Let’s plan the picnic and at the same time drive the highest productivity our organizations have ever seen.  Let’s flawlessly administer benefits and simultaneously attract complete freaking studs and studettes to our organizations.  Let HR not be HR.  Let HR be a driver of every part of our business – not a functional area – but an integration into what we do best.

And if we don’t, then yes, HR, as we know it, will be completely dead.

Better Performance Through Hanging Out with Ugly Coworkers

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Girls and guys both do this at the bar.  Want to look prettier?  Hang out with your ugly friends! Believe me, being a 5’7″ ginger, I’ve had my share of invitation from my better looking friends to hang out, knowing I was just a prop in their little scheme to look great.   Don’t feel bad for me, gingers are resilient, being the ugly prop has a ton of advantages – you can negotiate free drinks with your good looking friend, maybe even free dinner.  This is why I was so excited this week when Science finally validated what I’ve always known – The better looking you are, the better performance people will perceive you to have!

Check this out from the Time article, Guppies Use Ugly Friends to Seem More Attractive:

“An article published Wednesday by Britain’s Royal Society says that male guppies prefer to associate with their drab-colored counterparts when females are around.  Males actively choose the social context that maximizes their relative attractiveness,” the article said. Or, as lead author Clelia Gasparini put it, “If you are surrounded by ugly friends, you look better.”

Gasparini and her colleagues at Italy’s University of Padua built their theory on a kind of guppy dating game. An aquarium was set up with one female in partition on either end. Guppy bachelorette No. 1 had two attractive, brightly-colored males placed on either side of her. Guppy bachelorette No. 2 was stuck with uglier, drab-colored fish.

When a male guppy was put in the middle of the tank, and given the choice of which female to sidle up to, Bachelorette No. 2 was the more popular pick, with male guppies spending about 62 percent of their time hanging around her side of the aquarium.”

Science!
I know that no one who reads this blog would ever mistakenly give higher performance feedback versus that of their uglier peers!  My readers are Pros! They’re above this.  This begs the question, though, why is it executives, male and female, on average, are better looking and taller than their workforce on average?
Answer: We’re all stupid.  We like pretty things.  It’s why makeup is a multi-billion dollar industry.  It’s why we all want to date the prom queen. It’s how the fashion industry gets you to believe you need that new outfit.  We’re all lemmings.
We, deep down in our subconscious, believe that how someone looks, outwardly, speaks positively about how they perform (or will perform if we’re talking about selection).  We’ve heard it since we were kids from our parents and grandparents – “Oh, I like him, he’s ‘sharp'” or “Look the part”. Physical attractiveness =’s Better Performance, is one the hardest stereotypes you’ll ever face as an HR Pro – because it seems like a victimless crime.  What’s wrong with have a sharp looking, smart team!?  Nothing. But you’re selling yourself fools gold.  Physical attractiveness and High Performance do not correlate at all – Zero.
I will tell you, though, if you’re struggling with your performance, you’re probably hanging with a coworker peer group that is substantially better looking than you. Stop that.  Go find a whole bunch of ugly coworkers and start hanging with them.  It’s the cure for bad performance, guaranteed!

3 Steps to Getting Rid of an Overpaid Employee

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One of the biggest issues we face as HR Pros is trying to get rid of our overpriced employees.  Let’s be real – we made our own bed with this issue!  We were the ones going to our ‘comp’ guy, going “No, we have to go over range, this talent is worth it!”  Now you’re living with an employee making $20K more than the rest of team and all hell is breaking loose!  To be fair, we aren’t the only ones who do this.  Pro sports are classic for overpaying talent, that when the person signs looks like a great deal, but by year 4 or 5 all of sudden you wonder how do we get rid of this stiff! Hello, A-Rod!   The Yankees overpay worse than any other pro sports team in history.  For those who have been following recent developments with the Yankees – they have a major overpay problem with Alex Rodriguez.  From CBS Sports:

“Rodriguez has five years and at least $114 million left on his deal and is recovering from a major hip injury that will cause him to miss a huge chunk of the 2013 season, if not all of it. He’s 37 years old and, while still productive when healthy, is clearly in the decline phase of his career. So obviously the Yankees would love to get out of this contract.

The only issue is … they likely have no shot at doing so.”

$114M – for a broken down, can’t hit his weight, third baseman!  Makes you feel better about your overpaid employees, right!?

Let’s assume your overpaid employee isn’t horrible, but has become just average.  Familiar? How do you get rid of an overpaid, high priced, average employee?  I’ve got a few ideas:

1. Buy Out/Severance/Job Eliminataion – These aren’t all the same – but can be used to help you with this issue. For those HR Pros who have never used these options – you’re missing out.  Let’s be clear, it costs money – but it also gives you legal protection and gets rid of a problem very quickly.  Don’t blow this option off – you would be shocked at what amounts of money an employee would accept to go away.  Start low in your negotiations! Make sure you work with legal to get the right paperwork drawn up to protect yourself against future litigation!

(I’ve been able to get middle management levels folks to go away for $25K!  Huge positive impact to the team, production, engagement, etc.  Best $25K I’ve ever spent)

2. Put them in a box – Most of our leadership teams suck at accountability – to get rid of an overpaid person you need to turn up the accountability to an uncomfortable level – this usually pushes them out the door. You can’t let off the gas – you really have to follow up on the accountability until the person bails.  This can be painful and loud – and usually isn’t the cleanest way to get rid of person – if they’re smart, they’ll know exactly what you’re doing and could cause further problems then your overpay issue! Ironically, most HR Pros use this technique, over all else.

3. The Breakup Conversation – I’ve also had some good success having the breakup conversation.  Face-to-face, nothing in writing, close the door and just get ‘real’.  “Tim – we need to talk. You’re making $20K more than the next highest person on the team, and you’re not delivering that level of compensation.  We’ve got to do something. That could be you leaving in some form – or, what do you think?”  I’ve been amazed what my overpaid workers have come up with in terms of possible solutions.  I’ve had people retire after these conversations. Put themselves into a tighter box then I ever would have created. Even offered up taking a pay cut because they love the company and the job – and realize ‘we’ made an error and it’s become a problem.  I’ll be honest – in my career – pay cuts rarely work out – be cautious using them – but breakup conversations can lead you to a solution!

How Does HR Think?

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I’m not sure how HR thinks.  I know how I think, and from what people tell me, I don’t think like a ‘normal’ HR person.  One thing I really like, though, is to see how other pros think.  I learn a lot from how maybe an engineer addresses an issue versus say how a Designer would address the same issue.  I like to take aspects of how other professionals think and incorporate those thought processes into how I think about HR.  I think this helps me solve HR issues in ways that the business can grasp onto better.

I found a cool article recently on how Designers think.  Here are some of the ways Designers think:

– “Design is not about solving problems.  It’s about making people happy. And there are always so many personalities and ideas to consider. So you’re trying to simplify it to its fundamental structure.” 

– “You have to understand when the timing is right for dialogue, and when its time to move the limits. Designers arrive at a company to move its limits.”

– “Try to pare things down. Very few moves do a lot.”

– “Unoriginal, ugly and cheap. Revolutionary, gorgeous and luxurious. These do not have to be contradictions.”

– “The idea of innovation as a structured process has been taken to the extreme, where it is no longer a really useful or robust concept. You’ve got to go about letting people take sensible risks.”

– “…Pain is temporary. Suck is forever.”

In HR, I tend to believe that most HR pros don’t believe they work in a creative function.  In reality what you create in HR speaks volumes about the culture you’re shaping in your work environment.  If HR lacks creativity – your work environment is going to lack creativity.  The rule setters need to show the organization that from time to time, we need to break the rules to get us to the next level.  Sensibly, but rule breaking nonetheless.  Breaking the rules is like ‘kryptonite’ to HR Pros.  It goes against our very being.  Most HR Pros pride themselves on being ‘the one’ part of the organization that actually follows the rules. “If we don’t do it, Tim, who will?”

I don’t know.  What I know is I like how designers think.  It seems like a thought process that opens my mind and gets me thinking about how I can make things better.  It’s a thought process that challenges me to rethink what I’m doing and why.  That seems like a good thing. I don’t want to suck.  I hear suck is forever.

 

 

I’ll Retire When I’m Dead

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In case you missed it last week, America’s CEOs want to change the social security eligibility age from 65 to 70.  Of course this isn’t shocking and this argument has been building for decades as a possible solution to the social security funding problem as so many baby boomers start to collect.  From Bloomberg:

Raising the Medicare age to 70, from today’s 65, would keep the oldest workers, who generally have the greatest health costs, on private insurance for an additional five years. The shift would hit states that cover more low-income seniors through Medicaid, and it would raise premiums for younger people who buy health insurance through state exchanges, as more people with higher health costs enter the risk pool.

This would save Medicare money—a good thing for taxpayers. But it would effectively increase health costs for the country overall, including employers. “For many seniors, their costs will go up. For employers in the aggregate, their costs will go up,” says Juliette Cubanski, associate director for Medicare policy at the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation. That’s because Medicare pays doctors less for their services than private insurers do…

Workers might not relish spending those extra years on the job to keep their health insurance. But it’s the cost of living longer, as Gary Loveman, Business Roundtable member and chief executive officer of Caesars Entertainment (CZR), illustrated with a personal anecdote at a press conference:

“My father, who was an employee of AT&T (T) for more than 40 years, retired at age 61 and lived to be 95. He was a 34-year recipient of Social Security benefits—something that near his death, he noted to me with great pride that he had been on both [AT&T’s] payroll and the federal government’s payroll for much longer than anyone could possibly have anticipated. That’s, of course, generally speaking, good news,” Loveman said. “But it’s a problem the country simply can’t afford over a sustained period of time.”

I’ve witnessed this personally.  I have a grandparent who spent 30 years with good old General Motors – retired at the ripe old age of 51 and collected pension and eventually social security benefits for more years than they actually paid into the system.  That is why our ‘traditional’ way of retirement in America is broke.  The system was not created to have people collect social security for 15-20-25+ years.  When it was created, social security was a plan that the founders probably figured individuals would be on for 10 years or less.  While I don’t want to have to work until I’m 70 – for me and most Americans this is a foregone conclusion.

The new reality we face is 70 years old today, is not 70 years old of 20-30 years ago.  My Dad turned 70 this past year and still works in professional job and really doesn’t want to retire.  He’s reached a point in his career where he knows just about everything in his business and he has 30+ years of great relationships to leverage, and he has no fear about getting ‘fired’ – he’s 70!  Work can now be fun.

I have friends who still talk about wanting to retire at 55 and I tend to just shake my head and let them have their dream.  They really have no idea the amount of money it will take to live from 55 to 90 or so.  You’re talking millions of dollars in retirement investments – not 1 million – multiple millions to live another 30+ years.  I’m realistic.  I figure I’ll get to retire the day after I die.  At least I hope I get to.