Your Male Employees Are Running Scared!

Posted on December 1, 2017 by Tim Sackett

Ugh, I don’t even know if I want to write about this, but I just got back from the Recruiting Trends and Talent Tech Conference, and this one subject dominated most of my conversations in one way or another.

First, don’t think I’m looking for compassion for men. As a gender, we’ve dug our own hole pretty deep over the years. Let’s face it, many of us men can be super creepy at times, and unless you’re totally disconnected, we’ve been seeing this play out very publicly recently.

One thing is very certain in my eyes, dudes are paying attention to what is happening around sexual harassment, and probably for the first time in our history!

That’s a good thing. The stories I’m hearing from female friends and peers about dudes that I know is sickening. And, I’m the dude who goes to every conference and pulls some unsuspecting lady on stage and hugs her publicly! Thankfully, I wrote the workplace hugging rules, so it’s only semi-creepy when I do this!

Like everything that happens in our society it usually comes with both good and bad outcomes. An outcome of being more aware of how males act towards females is hopefully more appropriate, professional behavior in all interactions between the sexes. It won’t stop. Let’s face it, some dudes are born super creepy, and they’ll continue to be super creepy.

A negative outcome of this awareness is good dudes being scared to act normally because of what might be perceived as some pervy behavior. I’ll give you an example. I was at dinner with a large group at the Recruiting Trends conference this past week and we were all staying in different hotels.

One of the females in our group was at a hotel by herself, it was dark, and in ‘normal’ times, 100% of the time I would have walked her back to her hotel on a dark night, in the city. 100%. I didn’t.

I was scared of the perception this woman would have of me, thinking I was trying to come on to her. I was scared what other females in the group might think of me being so ‘presumptive’ that this female needed me to ‘help’ her get safely back to her hotel.

I apologized to this lady the next day. As a man, raised by women, I was embarrassed that I let what is happening in the media change my views of who I am. I should have done the ‘right’ thing and walked her to her hotel so she wasn’t alone.

The next day I spoke to both men and women about this, together, and the group understood, but also said, “hey, Tim, but you’re not creepy’. Great, but how do I know? How do others know? How does one woman define creepy from another?

All of this bad behavior by men coming out publicly is good for the world, but don’t think it doesn’t come with major cultural change as well. Chivalry can be viewed as wanted and unwanted, and if there is a 1% chance I think it might be unwanted, I’m out! I can not take that professional risk!

Men are running scared in your workforce right now. Much of that fear, for some, is very warranted. They should be scared based on how they’ve been awful. Some of it is an unintended consequence of making society better as a whole.

I guess if you want me to walk you back to your hotel in 2018 I would appreciate you asking me instead of me offering, so I know for sure I’m not being creepy!

Hit me in the comments. What other things are males doing that we probably view as ‘helpful’ that ladies are viewing as ‘creepy’?

Are You Struggling to be Happy at Work?

Posted on November 27, 2017 by Tim Sackett

In 1942 Viktor Frankl, a prominent Jewish psychiatrist, was taken to a Nazi concentration camp with his wife and parents. Three years later, when his camp was liberated, his pregnant wife and parents had already been killed by the Nazis. He survived and in 1946 went on to write the book, “Man’s Search For Meaning“. In this great book, Frankl writes:

“It is the very pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness.”

What Frankl knew was that you can’t make happiness out of something outside yourself. Riding the Waverunner doesn’t make you happy. You decide to be happy while doing that activity, but you could as easily decide to be angry or sad while doing this activity (although Daniel Tosh would disagree!). Frankl also wrote in Man’s Search for Meaning, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing, the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

I get asked frequently by HR Pros about how they can make their employees or workplace happier. I want to tell them about Frankl’s research and what he learned in the concentration camps. I want to tell them that you can’t make your employees happy. They have to decide they want to be happy, first. But, I don’t, people don’t want to hear the truth.

Coming up with ‘things’ isn’t going to make your employees happy. You might provide free lunch, which some will really like, but it also might make someone struggling with their weight, very depressed. You might give extra time off and most of your employees will love it, but those who define themselves by their work will find this a burden.

Ultimately, I think people tend to swing a certain way on the emotional scale. Some are usually happier than others. Some relish in being angry or depressed, it’s their comfort zone. They don’t know how to be any other way. Instead of working to ‘make’ people happy, spend your time selecting happy people to come work for you.

In the middle of a concentration camp, the most horrific experiences imaginable, Frankl witnessed people who made the decision to be happy. Maybe they were happy to have one more day on earth. Maybe they were happy because, like Frankl, they discovered that the Nazis could take everything from them except their mind.

Provide the best work environment that you can. Continue to try and make it better with the resources you have. Give meaning to the work and the things you do. Every organization has this, no matter what you do at your company. Don’t pursue happiness, it’s a fleeting emotion that is impossible to maintain. Pursue being the best organization you can be. It doesn’t mean you have to be someone you’re not. Just be ‘you’, and find others that like ‘you.’

She Said/He Said is Becoming Even More Problematic for HR!

Posted on November 16, 2017 by Tim Sackett

“I was harassed!”, said an employee.

What do you do?

The media would have everyone believe that we support this statement and believe this person 100%. It’s very in vogue right now to support claims of harassment 100% without hearing the other side of this story.

Here’s what I know in HR. If I investigated 1000 sexual harassment claims (and I’m probably close to that in my HR career!) about 997 of those claims are completely true! That’s almost 100%, but not exactly 100%, and that’s a problem for HR!

Let’s face it, from the beginning of Human Resources, She Said/He Said has been one of the hardest things for organizations to investigate and get a true story. Very rarely do you get a ‘smoking gun’ in she said/he said allegations. At best, what you get is one side claiming another party is guilty, and the other party claiming it just isn’t like it’s being told.

I think what’s even more problematic is the American legal system of innocent until proven guilty. Right now in America in terms of sexual harassment, you are guilty and we don’t care if you can prove yourself innocent, which you probably can’t because neither side can actually prove guilt or innocence in many of these cases. It’s she said/he said.

What’s more problematic for HR is that these cases change lives in a very major way. If one party is found to be guilty, most likely they’re losing their job and it will be a giant black mark on their ability to get another job. If one party is not found guilty, you have an employee who doesn’t feel supported and probably others in the organization that figure it’s not worth bringing future claims forward.

The world is getting to see famous people go down for bad behavior right now. Most of which is completely legitimate, a tiny portion of which is not. The world is getting a peek behind the HR curtain in what we’ve been trying to deal with for decades, and it’s not pretty or clean. It’s complicated and messy, and it’s really hard to make the correct decision when all you have to go on is one story over another story.

It’s key as HR professionals that we do what is needed to give each employee the benefit of the doubt and investigate to find the truth. To not let positions of power influence our duty and our ethics, and we are brave enough within our organizations to put our careers on the line to do the right thing.

Yes, brave. I had a leader who loved to say, “If you rake shit, it’s going to stink”. In she said/he said cases you’re going to be raking a lot of shit, and it’s going to stink. It takes bravery to see something that is not right and won’t be a popular decision in an organization and do the right thing, but that’s the gig, that’s the profession.

Welcome to the show kids! It’s a tough job, but our employees, all employees, need us as advocates!

Do you LOVE someone you work with?

Posted on November 1, 2017 by Tim Sackett

Almost two decades ago Gallup research came up with the Q12 of employee engagement. Basically, twelve questions you could give your employees to measure their level of engagement. Soon after, a multi-billion dollar industry was born and everyone in leadership and HR started to worry about how we could get and keep our employees engaged.

I thought most of it was crap and still do. Engagement for me is like watching a puppy chase it’s tail. They will never catch it, and if they do, it’s pretty unsatisfying after a while! Employee engagement is the same thing. I’m not saying you want disengaged employees, but where does it end, or does it ever end?

Once you go down this path of ‘training’ your employees you will do stuff to keep them engaged, they will continue to need stuff just to stay at that same level of engagement. Offer a kid a cookie and he’ll do what you say. Give a kid a million cookies and he loses interest in cookies.

The one piece of the Q12 I like is the question:

“I have a best friend at work.”

It’s pretty simple and straightforward. If you have a best friend at work, you’re more likely to want to stay at that job. I mean, heck, you’re best friend is there! What’s better than going to work each day with your best friend!? Not much!

Now, take that concept one step further. Instead of a best friend, do you ‘love’ someone at work? Imagine how you would support a coworker that you love!? It would be off the charts!

That’s what I love about the photo above from the World Series with Justin Verlander and Jose Altuve. For those who don’t know, Justin Verlander is a pitcher who came to Houston from Detroit this year at the trade deadline. So, Justin was very new to the team, but much needed if they want to win the world series.

There’s a long history of superstars coming together on a team and it not working out because egos get involved.

Jose Altuve is the best and most popular player in Houston. He’s a superstar. Justin Verlander is one of the top pitchers in baseball, in history. He’s a superstar. Want to know how one ultra-high-performing player welcomes another ultra-high-performing player and makes sure ‘culture’ and ‘ego’ will not be an issue?

Just look at the photo!

In an interview, Jose Altuve was asked about Justin Verlander and he said, “I literally love Justin Verlander”. Verlander was told what Jose said and had these shirts made up. These are two dudes who get it!

Mailbag Question: Should Our Receptionist Hug Clients?

Posted on October 27, 2017 by Tim Sackett

So, yes, I’m the “World’s Foremost Expert on Workplace Hugging” so it seems appropriate that this week I would get the following question from a reader:

Dear World’s Foremost Expert on Workplace Hugging,

My boss asked me to do something this week and before I did it I wanted to ask an expert, like yourself, and get some other opinions. The situation is our CEO has asked me to ‘tell’ our front desk receptionist that she will now be required to hug each client that comes into our office. Our CEO feels this will create a more welcoming and friendly environment for our clients. What are your thoughts on doing this?

Thinking this doesn’t right in Middle America!

Yes, this was an actual exchange that I had this week! I made up the name, but everything else is as accurate as I can make and still protect the innocent!

So, in 2017, a CEO of an actual, successful company, wants “Mary” the Receptionist to start hugging every client that comes to the office. Wow. Right? Just, Wow!

Here’s my response:

Middle America,

First, being a hugger, I actually understand where your CEO is coming from. When I go into a business and I’m met with a friendly (natural, unforced) hug. I feel very welcome! When I’m down south, I seem to get more hugs than if I’m on either coast or in a big city. So, part of me actually understands the psychology behind this request.

That being said, I have one question for your CEO (and I encourage to ask this question): “If Mary leaves as your receptionist, and you hire “Mark” to replace her, will your CEO still want “Mark” to go and hug every client?” I’ll take make a ‘big’ assumption here and say, no, probably not!

This is a very quick and simple way to point out how harassing this action would be viewed by normal people. If you decide to go down this path of making hugging an actual work requirement, you will end up in a lawsuit at some point!

Okay, I’m a hugger, so let me tell you how you get most of what you want, without the lawsuit! Go hire a natural hugger to man your front desk and never discourage this behavior! You’ll get most of what you want, especially if your CEO and others mirror this hugging behavior to every client they meet in front of this person.

Good Luck,

Tim The World’s Foremost Expert in Workplace Hugging!

I love HR because of this very real, innocent question. You never actually know what the heck you’ll walk into each day, and there is no way of planning for the insane things that happen!

Have a great Friday HR Pros! You deserve it!

Does Your Annual Review Process Include Terminations?

Posted on October 18, 2017 by Tim Sackett

By now most of you probably have had the chance to read the Telsla article where they terminated 400 employees directly after their annual review process. If not, check out the link. Also, my buddy Kris Dunn did a great write up on Tesla’s ‘unique’ culture as well over at the HR Capitalist.(Go Check it Out!)

My take is a bit different from Kris’s. Sure Tesla is a unique culture that has been ultra successful, but I’m wondering from an employee performance point of view, is firing employees during your annual process something that drives a sustainable culture?

Tesla is ultra cool, everyone wants “Tesla” on their resume or in their client list. Does that continue to be the case if you treat employees like this? I’m all for firing bad, underperforming employees, we all need to do this more and quicker. I think we all agree on that.

The question is, do you fire employees during your annual review process?

I’m wondering what the day or week before annual review time looks like at Tesla? Probably a lot of going away lunches and after hour drinks, but for everyone since no one really knows who will get ‘cut’ this time. Can you imagine those lunches!?

“Hey, team, everyone is invited to lunch next Thursday, just because, well, you know, it’s annual review time and we just want to say ‘thanks’ (“Thanks” now meaning “Goodbye” in Tesla speak) for all of your hard work, and, well, again, you just never know when one of us might want to do something else, and, oh gosh, we just never spend enough time together, so let’s break some bread!”

I’m also guessing the Friday after Tesla Annual Performance Review week is one big giant after-party!

Let’s face it, firing anyone during performance evaluation time is an awful way to run that process. You wait around for once a year to do most of your terminations, you’re not doing employee performance well at all!

If you have performance issues, high-performance companies address those issues immediately, work to correct, and if that doesn’t happen, they move to terminate as soon as it’s clear performance will not improve. Or you can wait around for f’ing ‘Death Day’ once a year and add a million times more stress to the process than is ever needed.

But what do I know, I mean it’s Tesla and Tesla knows all. Can’t wait to meet the ‘unicorn’ HR leader from Tesla at next conference I go to explain how brilliant they are for coming up with this nightmare.

HR on my friends.

Everyone Has An Organizational Expiration Date

Posted on October 16, 2017 by Tim Sackett

I was out at the HR Technology Conference last week and I was reminded of a post I ran a few years back. I ran into a ton of friends and colleagues, many that I’ve known for about ten years. These are good, smart people who are successful in the HR and TA industry.

Regardless, many of these folks are working at new companies, or even looking for work. I’m confident all will find what they are looking for, but it also points out a phenomenon that happens all the time which is many of us have organizational expiration dates.

There are a number of other reason people should have expiration dates with organizations, these include:

Chronic Average: This is for the people who just never really do anything, they just exist in your organization. After a while, they need to just go exist at another organization.
Convicted Idiot: This is the person who makes a certain bad decision, so bad, that their expiration with your organization must come up. Think, hitting on the bosses wife at the holiday party, or worse! Probably can’t legally terminate them, but they need to go someplace else.
1997 Top Salesman/woman: This happens way to much, yeah, you were top salesperson a decade ago, either get the trophy back or go give another organization your attitude! We tend to keep them around because we are hoping they’ll regain their top form, but they don’t. We need to just let them expire.
My Boss Is Dummer than Me: An organization can take only so many of these, for only so long. Ok, you win, go be smarter than us someplace else.
No Admins Left To Sleep With: I’m hoping the title of this one explains it as well, otherwise, you might have reached your HR expiration date at your organization!

But, what I’ve learned over the past couple of decades is that there are also some positive reasons of why people have organizational expiration dates:

New CEO is running the show. One day you’re minding your own business, the next day the new CEO fast-forwards your expiration date so she can bring in her own you.
We All Need Some New Magic. Many of us have a limited number of magic tricks. It might be amazing magic, but eventually, even our biggest fans get tired of our magic. But, the great thing is a new organization will love our magic! (Editors note: you can replace ‘magic’ with ‘bullshit’ and this works just the same)
You Stopped Growing. I’ve met some folks who took their organization to some great places, but eventually they reached a point where they stopped growing. Going to a new organization is really the only hope.

Probably the best thing we can hope for professionally is that we will know when our organizational expiration date is up before others know. How do we do that? Work hard on having the best self-insight you can. It might just extend your expiration date.

Turns Out, Employees Don’t Actually Leave Managers!

Posted on October 9, 2017 by Tim Sackett

For decades we’ve been telling leaders this one thing about employees and retention. We’ve said it so much, it’s actually become ‘common’ knowledge we take for granted. It’s this one phrase:

Employees don’t leave companies, they leave managers.

Have you used this phrase? Of course, you have! Everyone in HR has used this!

New research has come out from IBM’s Smarter Workforce Institute, “Should I Stay, or Should I Go?” that has actually proven our ‘common’ knowledge is wrong:

“Managers are not the reason most people leave –

• Contrary to many media reports, only 14 percent of people left their last job because they were unhappy with their managers.

• The biggest work-related reason (cited by 40 percent of respondents) for leaving is because employees are not happy with their jobs.

• Almost as many people (39 percent) left their last job for personal reasons such as spouse relocation, child care or health issues.

• One in five (20 percent) workers left because they were not happy with their organization.

• Eighteen percent left due to organizational changes which had caused a great deal of uncertainty.”

This isn’t some small study of a hundred employees. IBM looked at data from 22,000 employees!

So, why has this concept of employees leaving managers become so wildly accepted and popular amongst HR leaders and pros?

You won’t like this answer, but we liked using this reason for employees leaving because it meant it wasn’t our problem. I mean it was our problem to help fix, but it wasn’t our fault. It was those stupid managers!

So, we’ll coach them up. Give them soft skills training. Talk down to them like their children, and help them become ‘leaders’. IBM didn’t actually say this was the reason, this is my own reasoning. It’s just super comfortable to give this explanation to why we have high turnover.

The reality is if employees leave there are likely numerous reasons all of which are probably centered on a bad employee experience. They were unhappy because of something. It might have been because they were working for a crappy manager, but it also might be they just made a bad fit decision in the job they choose to accept, or culturally the fit wasn’t good with your organization and the employee.

One thing is certain. Employees, the majority, don’t leave managers. They leave your freaking company. That’s not our manager’s issue, it’s all of our issues. Today’s challenge? Stop using this phrase and start taking ownership of your employee turnover!

#DisruptHR Detroit was a Yuuggee Success!

Posted on September 29, 2017 by Tim Sackett

Hey, gang! It’s Friday and I’m buried from a busy week. Do you feel me!?!?

We held the first DirsuptHR Detroit event this week in midtown Detroit at the Graden Theater. We sold 330 tickets for a space that held 300, we had 50 people on a waiting list. The space was awesome. The speakers were awesome. The food and drink were awesome. The crowd was awesome.

I have to give up to the DisruptHR Detroit Team – Kristen Cifolelli, Patrice Matejka, Ursulla McWhorter, Colleen Schmerheim, Bridgette Morehouse, Christie Hecht, and Christie Reeves. It takes a village and this team was awesome!

Also, I have to thank all the sponsors who made this wonderful event possible: American Society of Employers, Marsh & McClennan Agency, Ultimate Software, Grace & Porta Benefits, Cambridge Consulting Group, QuadWest Assc., Walsh College, Sift, HRU, and Qualigence. Plus, a special shoutout to SkillScout who did all of our videos for the speakers!

So, it was a great night, that was until one nice young lady decided that somehow I reminded her of Donald Trump! WTF!?!?! You can see the picture above I had on a Tiger’s cap (yes, very disruptive at an HR event!), so I’m still perplexed on how I reminded of her Trump because I was super careful not to say anything racist while on stage!

We can’t wait for the next event! More details on that coming soon. In the mean time, if you want to speak at the next DisruptHR Detroit – send me a message and I’ll make sure to invite you when we open up speaking submissions!

7 Secrets Only HR Pros Know!

Posted on September 26, 2017 by Tim Sackett

I was reading an article the other evening over at Huffington Post, Welcome to the Club: What only Moms know (Why was I reading this I hear some of my dude HR guy pros asking themselves? Let’s face it I’m 40ish and woman are still mostly a mystery to me, so I try and find out their secrets! Plus I hate being left in the dark on this parenting thing, so “I need the info” as Dr. Evil would say.) I don’t want to spoil the article, but suffice to say, either I’m very in touch with the feminine side of parenting, or what they were sharing really wasn’t the “real” secrets Moms know!

The article did get me to thinking about secrets and how in HR we seem to always have a few that we are either ask to keep by others or just the ones we share in this great fraternity of HR. Here are some of the HR secrets that I thought of:

1. Who in the organization is on the way out. (Sometimes many people know of individuals who are on the way out, but usually, HR has a good pulse on everyone)

2. Who in the organization is probably on the way up, and not because they deserve it. (Every leader has an attraction to an employee or two, for a number of reasons, and those folks usually find their way into roles that they don’t deserve.)

3. How much money you’ll get on your next raise. (Oh, yes we do. But keep working hard anyway, we don’t want it to seem like it’s predetermined)

4. The information of why certain departments tend to get more (resources, staff, etc.) than others – but we can’t you – it would cause organizational chaos! (I hate to tell you this, but it usually has nothing to do with department performance and everything to do with your department leader – or should I say lack thereof)

5. What you’re going to get for your annual bonus – usually 6-12 months before you get it. (hey, this stuff has to be budgeted)

6. What changes will happen to your benefits – again – usually 4-8 months before it hits you.

7. Who in your company is most likely to go postal on you. (But we can’t tell you for HIPAA reasons – sorry – but if you sit next to Ted you might want to invest in a bulletproof vest)

I’m sure there are a number of others, but many aren’t unique to just HR. I was thinking of putting down: We cook the books on our metrics, but guess what? So does every other department! Let’s face it, in a political corporate structure that relies on metrics to obtain budgeted resources, the numbers aren’t always going to be clean!

I like HR because we tend to have “big” secrets and are called upon to keep those secrets. It’s probably the biggest failure I see with new HR pros – they tend to try and create organizational friendships by sharing “the secrets” -and it always ends up blowing up on them.

HR has secrets, you knew it and just I confirmed it for you. Now let’s move on because I not telling you any of the specifics! (besides the Ted thing)

The Tim Sackett Project

TA & HR Expert, Dad, Backup Point Guard on my over 40 men's team

Category Archives: The HR Rules