Category Archives: The HR Rules

@SHRM Certifications Gain Accreditation!

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If you haven’t seen it SHRM announced last week that they gained accreditation for their SHRM-CP and SHRM-SCP exams by the Buros Center for Testing. This was a big deal because it was one of the major things HRCI was holding over the heads of those HR pros trying to decide which HR certification they should get. This is no longer a factor as both are accreditated.

From SHRM’s press release:

To achieve accreditation, SHRM submitted a 1,900-page application documenting its testing practices, methodology, and policy. The thorough review process took six months to complete and included site visits of SHRM and its testing vendors.

Since the launch of the SHRM-CP and SHRM-SCP two years ago, SHRM has worked to gain recognition as the global standard in HR certification. Achieving accreditation further demonstrates to HR professionals and their employers that SHRM-certified professionals meet the high standards expected and needed in HR today.

We celebrate this milestone with more than 96,000 SHRM–certified professionals, the fastest-growing HR certification community. The SHRM-CP and SHRM-SCP are the most widely-taken HR exams in the world.

 

Who can also listen to a portion of media call where SHRM made this announcement by clicking on this link.

So, why is this a big deal?

I could argue that for most HR pros and most organizations hiring HR pros, it’s probably not. Many won’t understand the difference in being accreditated or not accreditated. All they want is the letters behind your name. But, if you believe that hiring someone who actually knows how to work in the business of HR, then it becomes a very big deal!

It’s like hiring someone from a great university, say Michigan State University and their fantastic HR program, versus hiring someone who graduated with an HR degree from the back of an airline magazine. You want to make sure you’re actually hiring someone who came from an accreditated program!

Another piece that’s important here is the continued battle between SHRM and HRCI to gain the trust of the growing profession of human resources. There are roughly 1700 university-based HR programs available in the United States. The profession of HR continues to grow at a staggering pace.

I’ve argued all along that SHRM has many advantages in continuing to have the upper hand in this war for HR pros, being accreditated just took away a major advantage HRCI had over SHRM. I’ve always thought the competency based measurement that SHRM has is better than a knowledge based assessment. I don’t much care if my HR pros can give me facts, I need them to be able to use that knowledge to move my business forward and demonstrate to me they have that ability.

SHRM still has a ton of work to do to stay on top, like updating their university program and allowing HR college students and new graduates to gain some sort of certification that isn’t pending. A global certification is another item that is a must. Plus, SHRM has to figure out how to act smaller and move faster. They’re a very traditional, large association type organization, and quite frankly that isn’t a strength in a world that is moving extremely fast.

As a SHRM member, I’m happy that the SHRM-CP and SHRM-SCP are now accreditated. I look forward to seeing continued updates and changes from SHRM, and I’m excited to see that they’re actually being a bit more open with the HR blogger community and giving us access to information before it goes public.

It Sucks Getting Turned Down for a Promotion!

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The hardest part of being a leader is promoting an employee internally when there are more than one viable candidate for the position. The fact of the matter is someone is going to get that job, and one or more are not. That usually ends with one of your really good employees being pissed off.

I’ve read countless articles on how to handle this situation and they’re mostly crap, and I think written by people who have, 1. Never actually dealt with this situation and/or 2. Never be turned down for a promotion they truly felt they deserved!

For some reason the the Dallas Cowboys current quarterback situation reminds me of this issue. Rookie Dax Prescott came in when Tony Romo got hurt. He’s been awesome and the Cowboys are currently one of the best teams in the NFL. Tony Romo, a great quarterback in his own right, is now no longer injured and ready to return. Almost every team in the NFL would love having Tony Romo start for them.

So, it’s a bit different from the promotion scenario, but not really. Tony should be promoted into the role of starting quarterback. He’s proven, he’s good, he used to be the starter, but he’s not going to. In his absence, they found a replacement that is really good as well and you don’t want to screw up that chemistry.

Here’s what I really like about Romo. He came out and became the ‘team’ guy. He’s letting everyone know, including Dax, this isn’t about Tony Romo, this is about the Dallas Cowboys winning the Super Bowl. He’s supporting Dax and the team to keep winning and will do whatever it takes to make that happen, including supporting them on the sidelines and not playing. Oh boy, you know that’s tough for him to say!

Not getting a promotion at your job, feels exactly what Tony Romo is feeling. Don’t kid yourself about the money. He would play for free this year if he could win a Super Bowl. You really, really wanted that promotion, but someone else got it. Probably, someone you feel you’re as good as, or maybe even a bit better, but the ‘team’ choose to pick someone else for that role.

You have a choice to make:

  1. Be disgruntled and pissed off, believing you got screwed, probably leave the company, eventually.
  2. Be that ‘team’ player. Keep being the high performing employee that got you in a position to be considered for promotion, and support your peers, waiting for your next opportunity.

Most people will choose number one.

In almost every single situation in a corporate environment where I’ve been a part of these decisions, no matter how hard we tried to let the other person know how valued they are and what are our plan was to get them to that level they desired, they still choice to go the route of number one. It takes a really strong person to go the route of number two and be Tony Romo.

In the end, choosing to go the path of number two actually says more about you as a leader, than your actual performance as an employee.

Do Your Leaders Need to be Technocrats to be Successful?

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With the U.S. Presidential elections behind us, we’ll continue to see fallout for some time.  Hillary Clinton was considered by many in Silicon Valley to be a “Technocrat“. What’s a technocrat you ask?

A technocrat is someone who’s an advocate or proponent of a Technocracy, and part of the technology skilled elite. A technocracy is a theoretical organized structure of governance where the leaders are actually selected based on their technological knowledge. Like most things, though, the media has used the term to describe an individual who is pro-technology, for the most part.

On the flip side, President-elect Trump (boy that was odd writing!) is not considered to be a technocrat.

One of the reasons millennials voted for Clinton in such huge numbers was she was considered to be more technology savvy than Trump and advocated for technology more than her opponent. The reality is both are 70-year-old baby boomers, who probably couldn’t set up their own email on an iPhone, but one had a better marketing team than the other!

Regardless of actual technological skill, I still believe it comes back the mindset, not age, that you’re either pro-technology (technology is good and will help us be better), or you see technology as fine, but it’s not life-changing (yeah, I can see what you’re saying, but the old way works as well). So few are now anti-technology that it’s not even worth talking about.

It begs the question, though, that if a younger workforce has shown they prefer leaders who are Technocrats, should you be looking for that trait when you go and select leaders?

I believe we should be selecting leaders who are Technocrats and here are some reasons why:

1. A younger workforce is more likely to follow a leader who is pro-technology.

2. We need our leaders pushing our organizations forward and one of the best ways is through technology advances.

3. Having a technocrat mindset is more akin to having a strategic mindset. If you’re constantly thinking about how technology can advance your business, you’re being strategic, as compared to just running your operations the same way they always have been.

The hard part of selecting technocrats is almost anyone in today’s work world under the age of sixty will tell you, “of course, I’m pro-technology!” When in fact, most have no idea what that even means. Saying you’re pro-technology and being pro-technology are two very different things.

Yeah, I use Netflix. No, I have no idea how my kids set it up. Just because you watch Netflix doesn’t make you pro-technology. Liking technology and taking a keen interest in how it works to make your life better are two different things. Technocrats want to know more. They might not be able to write code, but they dig in beyond just the surface.

The key to selecting technocrat leaders is to have them give you specific examples around how they’ve used technology to push their organization or department forward? What was their role in the selection process? Why did they select one technology over another? Technocrats will love these questions and will really take you into the weeds with their answers.

Just being a technocrat won’t make a leader candidate a good leader. We all know all of the other leader traits we are looking for in selecting our next leaders. It’s my belief, though, that as we move forward, our leaders need to be technology savvy if they truly want to connect and lead a younger workforce.

 

Notes to HR Tech Vendors #7 – Stop It Already With All These Titles!

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I’ve done a few presentations titled something like, “HR Tech Buyers Guide”, “How to Buy HR Tech”, etc. The presentation is designed for HR and TA practitioners to help them become better buyers of HR Tech. To understand the crap that HR and TA Tech vendors do and say to get you to buy stuff you might not need, want, or will use.

The interesting thing about these presentations is that half the audience turns out to be the actual vendors themselves wanting to hear what it is I’m telling the real HR and TA leaders! It’s smart for the vendors. It helps make the better sellers as well. Well, at least some that actually listen!

Based on these interactions I decided to build a series of what has come out of interactions with the vendors themselves, aptly named “Notes to HR Tech Vendors”. Look I don’t alway have to be creative! Enjoy!

Notes to HR Tech Vendors #7 – Stop It Already With All These Titles!

I went to an HR Tech vendor website the other day. I wanted to get a demo. You see, I’m in the market for a new ATS. Something specifically designed for staffing firms, but that also has some really modern CRM functionality (let the emails pitches begin!).

The crazy part was that this vendor had nowhere on their site where I could schedule a demo, or have someone contact me for a demo! I could see a 3-minute video demo and I could try their product for free for two weeks, but not just schedule a demo.

So, being a headhunter by trade, I go searching for a Sales Pro from this vendor. They had about 100 employees on LinkedIn and crazy enough, I couldn’t find a sales pro listed! But, here’s a list of titles I find:

Customer Success

Program Managers

Product Managers

Strategic Account Mgrs

Pre-Sales Solutions Consultant

Renewals Mgr

Engineers

Marketing

Enterprise Sales Leader

Account Executive

Implementation Consultant

Partner Manager

Lead Renewals Mgr.

Product Development

Sales Engineer

Commercial Sales VP

Now, I’ve been around the game for a while, so I figured this organization was using “Account Executive” instead of some other way to identify who the heck was actually selling. To confuse matters, they also had people with the title “Commercial Sales” and “Enterprise Sales”. I’m not sure what the difference was! I also couldn’t figure out what the hell a ‘Renewals’ person was vs. a ‘Lead Renewals’ person.

I didn’t even write down all the titles I found, but out of 100 employees, there had to be at least 50 different titles! I’m wondering if this is that millennial trophy thing I’ve been hearing about?! Let’s throw out titles to the crew like a rapper making it rain at a strip club!

The only thing you really need to do in selling HR software is let people know how to go about buying your software!

What “titles” would I prefer? How about:

  • Sales Rep
  • Solution Sales Rep
  • Call Me to Buy Our Crap

99.9% of organizations aren’t going to just sign up for the free version of a major HR/TA software. It’s great that you’ll let me use it for free, but I don’t have time to hassle around with that. I want a demo. Then, I might play in your free sandbox a little. I’ll compare against others. Then, I’ll make a decision.

So, we all think this one example of this poor company is funny, right? The problem is, it’s most HR Technology companies and many of the companies that I love! Can we stop it already with these freaking titles!?

Vets, We Love You, but We Still Aren’t Hiring You!

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One of the most politically correct lies that employers spout off constantly is how desperate they are to hire Veterans! There’s a reason for this. In America, we love to honor our Vets! There’s nothing better than propping your brand up against that American flag with a soldier standing right next to it.

The reality is, most Vets are still struggling to find solid careers. Sure, everyone wants to offer them a $15/hr bust-your-ass-job, but Vets are looking for salaried positions with great benefits, in jobs they can work the rest of their career, that won’t destroy their body. Not many employers are offering Vets those jobs!

I’ve been writing about this problem for the past five years and I get a healthy stream of Vets who write me behind the scenes and share their stories and struggles to find solid career level positions. I just recently had an individual who came out of his service with a degree in HR, service of constant promotion, supervised upwards of one hundred soldiers at a time. In that role, he had constant performance management, training, process improvement, etc.

He was applying for an entry-level HR Generalist role. He got turned down because he didn’t have enough experience!

So, why are companies still struggling when it comes to hiring Vets into higher level roles? Here’s what they don’t tell you:

  1. Less than 1% of Americans have ever served in any branch of the military. We fear what we don’t know, and we definitely don’t hire what we don’t know! We only see pictures of Vets holding guns and in combat, but that’s a small part of their every day activities.
  2. Movies have given us a warped sense of what professionals in the military actually do. Today’s modern military is rarely portrayed as it actually is in the movies because it wouldn’t be very exciting. It’s the same reason you don’t see movies about the day to day happenings of a large company. It’s mostly boring! What most military pros do on a daily basis, away from battle zones, is mostly the same stuff you do on a daily basis. It’s HR, logistics, accounting, administration, training, development, etc.
  3. We overvalue work experience within an industry. If someone worked at your competitor for 3 months, you would value that more highly than a military professional doing the same job for 3 years. We so overvalue industry experience it’s not even funny! I’ve worked in four different industries and each time had people tell me, “Oh, Tim, this is the craziest industry you’ll ever be in”, ever time! Guess what? It wasn’t. It’s all the same! Get over yourself!

I recently hired a Vet into my own company. We mostly hire new recruiters and train them up, but it’s definitely a career job. Great recruiters can find work anywhere for the rest of their life, in every industry. It’s mostly a desk job. Recruiting companies love to hire former college athletes. What I’ve found is Vets come with the same motivations and skills, but their work ethic might be a bit stronger!

I constantly have CEOs tell me they just want people who want to work. Yet, when it gets down to their hiring managers, there’s a mental block happening. If these military folks were minority or women we would call this discrimination, but for some reason, we don’t say that with Vets. But, that’s mostly what’s happening.

We love to hide behind the fact we found someone with more ‘industry’ experience, or someone who has done the same job, etc. It’s all excuses. You don’t hire Vets because you don’t think they can handle your jobs. The fact is, they can, they just need you to give them a shot!

Do yourself a favor this Veteran’s Day. Take a chance and hire a Vet into a job you’ve never tried before. Sure, they’ll need some training, but they’ll bring the rest, and you might just find your organizations next great talent pool!

Okay, Your Candidate Won, Don’t Be An Asshole!

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I’m writing this before the election, because either way it turns out, I would feel the same way!

Congratulations! Your candidate won! It’s like when OJ was acquitted of murdering his wife and Ron Goldman. A bunch of people ran around so freaking ecstatic that he ‘won’. Chris Rock famously said,”We won, we wonnnnn!” “What the fuck did we win? Every day i look in the mail for my OJ prize and it ain’t there.”

I’m waking up today, knowing 100% I won’t be getting a Hillary check or a Trump check! In fact, regardless of who won, there’s a great chance I’ll be getting an invoice!

When Michigan State plays the University of Michigan and MSU wins. I’m going to be an asshole to a lot of UofM fans. Why? Because mostly their douchebags and that’s kind of how fandom works in college athletics. If you beat your rival, you can be an asshole until they beat you, then you know it’s your turn to take it for a year, or whenever you beat them the next time.

Politics are not college athletics.

Voting for President isn’t about winning or losing. We’re all on the same team! The team is called America.

That’s the hard part. America has turned into this giant multi-national organization. Within that organization you have mergers that have taken place, we’ve tried some spinoffs, we’re constantly trying to launch startups, we have our main product line that is a cash cow but every new hire thinks it sucks, etc.

America just got a new CEO. Regardless of who that CEO is, some employees aren’t going to like it. A few will actually leave the company, but it’s mostly employees blowing smoke. Leaving takes real work, most people say they’ll leave and then have selective amnesia when the topic comes up after the fact.

So, I’m in HR. It’s now my job to get as many people as possible to follow the new CEO. That’s how a company stays successful and/or turns itself around. Develop a vision, get behind it and see how good we can make it. Americans for the most part, have always been fairly decent employees. We’ll voice our opinion, but when stuff gets real, we support each other.

So, today, when you walk by that co-worker who voted for the other person and lost, don’t be an asshole. Be sympathetic. They want, what you want, to be the best country we can be for those here now and for those who will be here in the future.

 

 

HR’s Unwritten Rules!

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

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

Dallas Cowboy’s, Tony Romo was injured at the beginning of this season and potentially could have come back this past week, but his ‘backup’ Dax Prescott has done such a good job this season, that the coach and GM now have a really difficult decision to make! This has 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?

This has 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, and legally 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!

Notes to HR Tech Vendors – #10 – Your Real Competition

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I’ve done a few presentations titled something like, “HR Tech Buyers Guide”, “How to Buy HR Tech”, etc. The presentation is designed for HR and TA practitioners to help them become better buyers of HR Tech. To understand the crap that HR and TA Tech vendors do and say to get you to buy stuff you might not need, want, or will use.

The interesting thing about these presentations is that half the audience turns out to be the actual vendors themselves wanting to hear what it is I’m telling the real HR and TA leaders! It’s smart for the vendors. It helps make the better sellers as well. Well, at least some that actually listen!

Based on these interactions I decided to build a series of what has come out of interactions to the vendors themselves, aptly named “Notes to HR Tech Vendors”. Look I don’t alway have to be creative! Enjoy!

#10 – Your Real Competition

Unless you’re buying some giant watered-down enterprise level HRIS or ATS/Talent Suite you almost never have competition!

Yes, you read that correctly. 90% of HR Tech vendors have “NO” competition! But, you believe the opposite.

Here’s the deal. HR and TA Tech buyers are fairly naive to the industry. It’s not our full-time job to track every new ATS that is being launched. We’re just trying to get people hired and stop people from quitting. Takes up about 99.9% of our job! So, when it’s time to buy new Tech we usually buy the first thing we’re sold!

The competition you face is not your real competitors. The competition you face is a “no sale”.

Almost all HR Tech buyers will buy your product, or they won’t buy anything. Primarily because they don’t even know you have competition. Well, they didn’t until you actually told them! “Hey, we’re the #1 CRM on the market, so much better than #2, #3 and #4.” What? There is more than one CRM!?

If you’re Smashfly (a CRM Tech) almost every single sale is going to be a “Yes” or a “No, we’ve decided we don’t need this right now”. It’s almost never “hey, we’ve decided to buy Clinch, or Avature, or Ascendify, or Talemetry, or Beamery, or”…you get the picture!

Almost never!

Your real competition is you. It’s your ability to sell your solution to a buyer that has some sort of pain around HR or TA. It’s shocking at how often this fails. I mean what can go wrong when you throw a 15-year-old on the phone with a twenty year HR vet on the other end, telling them how to fix her shop!?

And you think I exaggerate on the age! Almost every single HR and TA Tech sales person I speak is under the age of 30 and most have never worked a day in HR or TA. This leads to a ton of “no sales”.  If you can’t tell me how your solution is going to solve my pain, in my language, I’m probably not buying.

HR and TA Tech vendors, your competition isn’t the problem. Your technology isn’t the problem (it’s usually really awesome). Your sales strategy is killing you. The cute, little, naive babies selling your products is the problem. They don’t know me. They don’t know my pain. They don’t speak my language.

Your real competition is you.

Is Mobile more Trump or more Hillary?

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If you’re into broad political strokes, let’s play a game. Let’s say for the sake of this game, what would be considered traditional Democratic supporters tend to have less resources at their disposal than traditional Republican supporters. Most of us in HR would then believe that Trump probably should have a larger mobile strategy than Hillary, given the assumption that Republicans tend to have higher incomes and therefore more access to mobile devices.

 

We tend to act this way in HR. We believe that if you want to attract high-tech talent you must have a mobile job strategy. Our young, educated tech-savvy workforces want to do everything via mobile. Payroll, benefits options, retirement, transfers, etc.

 

The reality is, we have this totally backward!

 

The Pew Research Center found that low-educated, low-income wage earners – your hourly employees – are more likely…

 

Check out the rest of my article over at Paychex’s Worx Blog! Along with the 4 things you need to launch mobile-enabled software to your employees! 

 

The Ultimate Gift Guide for Boss’s Day! #MakeBossesGreatAgain

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Does anyone really celebrate National Boss’s Day?  It seems like something made up by some drunk employees one night and then the next day they realized it went too far!

What’s next National “White Man’s” Day? Oh wait, my black friends, women friends, Native American friends, Hillary, etc. say that’s every day! Or was that last week for Columbus Day? I get confused, they keep changing what we can and can’t celebrate.

I have to say I’ve been a ‘boss’ for (well, let’s face it I was born a ‘boss’!) twenty-some years and the only Boss’s Day gift I’ve ever gotten was being taken out to lunch back in the 90’s! Ever since then I was told it was a bad thing to be a boss. I needed to be a leader and leaders don’t get gifts, we give gifts!

I can’t enjoy being white. I can’t enjoy being male. I can’t enjoy being a boss. The struggle is real!

So, since I can’t enjoy Boss’s Day I decided to develop a list of gifts I would like to receive on Boss’s Day is we lived in let’s say Trump’s America! I’m sure part of his political platform is to Make Bosses Great Again!

The Ultimate Boss Gift Guide for Bosses Day:

– Free Back Massage Coupons! Can you imagine anything more magical than giving your well-respected boss a nice good old fashioned in office back rub! Yeah, I thought so!

– Liquor! Hey, this boss in-office bar doesn’t stock itself! Top shelf don’t try and drop off anything you’d find on the rail, no boss wants second tier liquor!

– A nice tie! Just kidding, you should be fired if you give your boss a tie on Boss’s Day! Unless that tie comes with an invitation to tie you up! Now we’re talking boss language!

– Signed copy of “Mean Business” by Chainsaw Al Dunlap!  You kids might have to look up the career of Chainsaw Al, it’s brilliant and inspiring for real bosses. Every boss loves a good bookshelf filled with books they haven’t read but one that scares the hell out of any employee who sees the titles!

– Your Employee of the Month parking spot! Just kidding, again! Ha! Suckers, I park in covered parking or the driver drops me off up front. Keep your Row 1 parking spot, your 2007 Honda Civic looks really nice there.

Boss’s Day! It seems like it only comes around once a year. I’m not quite sure how that happened, you would think bosses would have made it monthly!?

So, remember today isn’t about you, it’s about your Boss! Make them feel special. Treat them with respect. Kiss the ring.