Category Archives: The HR Rules

Surprise! You’re an HR Manager! Now what?

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It’s graduation season and soon many new HR brothers and sisters will be entering into their first real HR gigs. Many will be titled, “HR Manager”, even without one day of experience.  That’s because in many organizations, HR Manager is the only HR position they have, and they’ll gladly take a young, fresh new HR grad.

The tendency for new managers, especially HR Managers thrust into a generalist role, is to get buried with tasks.  We all know the drill, you get started at the new company, and by day 3 you already have so many projects, improvements, process changes, etc. that need to be made you determine you probably have about 18 months worth of work.

Whether you’re a new manager, or seasoned HR Pro, we tend to forget the above concepts from time-to-time and get bogged down in the everyday details within HR Departments.  So, for the new HR Managers (and maybe some seasoned vets) I wanted to give you 3 tasks that should be accomplished everyday as a HR Manager who wants to be strategic and add value to your organization:

1. Keep Track of the Score,

2. Find Better Talent,

3. Be a Relationship Bridge.

Keeping track of the score, means you must create and track metrics, for your people practices, that have bottom-line impact to your organization. Communicate these constantly and educate your organization on how they can impact these results.

Finding better talent for your organization is really the only reason the HR Department exists.  If you did only this all day, every day, your company would be better for it.  No, having a better dress code policy isn’t going to make you world class. In the end, talent wins.

The single largest factor to inefficiency isn’t bad processes, it’s bad, or non-existent, relationships. It is your job to develop your leaders, and part of that is helping them understand the value of each part of the organization and getting them to dance with each other.  Being a bridge, and bringing leaders together, with understanding will have the greatest impact on efficiency.

Leaders understanding, and actually knowing, each others pain will solve most organizational problems. Why? Because you hire great talent, and great talent with good relationships will move mountains and get you to world class.

Never underestimate the power of relationships (good and bad).

Show me a leader who claims they can “work around” someone (meaning they don’t get along with that person), and I’ll show you a below average leader who needs to leave your organization.  New, and seasoned, HR Managers underestimate the leverage they have at helping organizational efficiency through better relationships.

Good Luck new HR Managers!

HR Worst Enemy

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I’ve been speaking a few local SHRM events and some corporate events and I’m always amazed to hear about all of the Enemies that HR has!  You have employees, and hiring managers, and the EEOC, and employment attorneys, and staffing firms, and insurance firms, and HR software providers – I mean, if I hadn’t been in HR, I would think that everyone is against HR!

It feels like that some days, doesn’t it?

HR’s real worst enemy, though, doesn’t get that without your organizations service or product being successful – no one is successful.

HR’s worst enemy doesn’t get that more hurdles to jump through, means less time for operations to focus on the real business at hand.

HR’s worst enemy doesn’t get that treating everyone the same way, doesn’t create a high performance culture.

HR’s worst enemy doesn’t get that having employees fill out open enrollment paperwork just so you have a document to prove what they filled out, spends more resources then it saves.

HR’s worst enemy doesn’t get that adding 5 additional steps to a process doesn’t make it simpler, it makes it more complex.

HR’s worst enemy doesn’t get that not leaving your department to go out an build relationships in other departments isn’t a good thing.

HR’s worst enemy doesn’t that eliminating all risk isn’t something that is possible – nor should it be a goal.

HR’s worst enemy…is itself.

How To Tell Someone They Suck

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Got a question recently from a newbie HR/Talent Pro about how do you tell someone they just aren’t good enough for the position you have, without hurting their feelings?  Great question, and one that we all run into frequently.  Here’s the story:

“Mr. Jones (I’ve changed the name to protect the guilty) won’t stop bugging me, he emails his resume to me ‘every’ day!”  We know Mr. Jones, because Mr. Jones use to work for us, and it didn’t turn out so well.  Mr. Jones was “laid off” back in the recession when we got rid of our dead wood. Now, Mr. Jones wants to come back for another position we have.  The problem with Mr. Jones isn’t skill related, it’s personality related, he’s annoying.  He was annoying to everyone who ever came into contact with, but his manager never coached him on this.”

So, the BIG question. How do you get Mr. Jones to stop bugging you?  This happens to every single HR/Talent pro I know eventually.

Here are the steps I use:

1. Tell Them!

That’s it, no more steps.

Here’s our problem as HR/Talent Pros, we never want to burn a bridge.  “Well, Tim, you don’t know where he might go, who might hire him, I don’t want to ruin my reputation”  Bullshit.  You’re being conflict avoidant, and if you look at your last performance review, I bet under “opportunities” is probably says something about avoiding conflict or not confronting issues head on.

I had a very good HR mentor once tell me, “it’s best to deliver them that gift, then to allow them to walk around not knowing”.  Once you start being straightforward you’ll be amazed at how many people will say, “No one has ever told me that!”  That’s the problem, no one ever tells them the truth, thus they keep doing the wrong thing, instead of trying to fix what is wrong.

How do you get an annoying candidate to stop bugging you?  You tell them exactly, very specifically, very calmly, with no ill intent, “I want to give you a gift.  You might not see it as a gift right now, but I hope in time you’ll understand it to be a very valuable gift.  I (don’t use “we” or “us” or “the company – you’re avoiding again by using those), I think you have a very bad personality flaw that comes across annoying to me, and from the feedback I have received, to those you work with.  If this does not change, you will probably struggle to find a job and keep a job.”

OUCH! That hurt right?  But, read it again, was there anything mean or untrue in the statement? If this person actually listens to the statement and acts on it, will they be better for it?  You can change the reason for whatever issue the person might have, maybe it’s hygiene, maybe it’s a crazy laugh, who knows, but the basic message stays the same.  You need to change, or I never want to speak to you again.

It’s hard for new HR/Talent pros to understand this, because 99% have been taught to be nice, thoughtful people and not to be rude.  This sounds a bit rude.  In reality, I think it’s rude to string a person along and not care enough about them to actually tell them what is wrong and to help them.  Stop telling candidates your blow off lines and start telling candidates the truth.  At the very least, you’ll have more time on your hands to talk to the candidates you really want to speak to!

Watered Downed Feedback is Killing America

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I said this before, but you don’t want to hear it.  No one cares about what you have to say, unless it’s telling them how good they are.

People can’t handle critical feedback, unless it’s set up in a mechanism where they expect it and desire it.  That’s the crux, hardly anyone has that mechanism and while most people tell you they want critical feedback they don’t have the makeup to handle it.

Here are the types of “critical” feedback people can handle:

“You’re doing a good job, would love it if you could get that big project off the ground. That would really help us out!”

Here’s what you really want to say, critically, but can’t:

“You do good at things I tell you to do, and all basic day to day duties of the job. I need more from this position and from you, and I’m willing to help get you there. I need someone who can take a project from scratch and kill it, without me having to babysit the entire thing. You’re not doing that, and that’s what I really need you to do. Are you willing do that?” 

Same message, right?  You do some stuff good, but one critical aspect of the job is not getting done. The problem is, the first level feedback is given 99.9% of the time, because managers and leaders know if you deliver the second level, that person will be destroyed!

They’ll think you think they suck, and they’ll start looking for a job.  When in reality, you were just trying to give them legitimate feedback. Real feedback. Something that would actually help them reach expectations.

So, how do you get to a point to be able to deliver ‘real’ feedback?

It’s starts with your hiring process. In the interview process you need to set people up to understand that your organization delivers real feedback, and they must be able to accept critical feedback and not crumble.  This is a team, it’s about getting better, not hurt egos.  Half will crumble in the interview, which is a good thing, you don’t want them anyway.

For those that you think have the self-insight enough to handle it, you need to do it before hire. Give them the real feedback from their interview, and see how they reply, how they interact.  This will show you what you can expect from them when they get this level of feedback as an employee.

For the employees already working, you need to start by showing them and giving them examples of what true feedback looks like. You need to coach and train your leaders on how to deliver this, on an ongoing basis.  You then need to have coaches and mentors sit in with all leaders when they begin to deliver this feedback.

Part of your leader training is to show them how to accept feedback from their teams as well. If you want to dish it out, you have to accept it as well. Training and coaching employees on how to ‘manage up’ is key to making this successful. This isn’t about blowing people up. It’s about delivering true feedback to help them get better, and person accepting and receiving this information under that assumption. We want you to be the best you, you can be.

All this takes work and time. The organizations that can do this win the culture war, because all the people working for you will know they won’t get this anywhere else!

3 Things You Should Say When Resigning

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I have people ask me to help them write a resignation letter – which is a little funny because it really doesn’t matter what you write – only two things are going to happen:

1. They’ll freak out that you are leaving and try and talk you out it.

2. They’ll go “Oh, that’s too bad, we will hate to see you go”

For your ego sake, you want #1, not #2. #1 means your boss/company perceives that you’re valuable and more than likely doing more work than most and they don’t want to see you go, because they don’t want to take on your work.  #2 means they were probably looking at cutting you anyway in the next layoff and you just made their job very easy, plus they got a free intern for the summer that will probably do your job better than you did, or create a new process eliminating your job all together.

Now, about that all important resignation letter…

I tell people there are 3 things to say when you resign, whether you believe them to be true or not (and for all my former bosses that I resigned, this isn’t what I did to you, I really meant what I said):

– “You are the best mentor I’ve ever had; I want to thank you so much for all you’ve given me.”  (there’s a got chance you’ll need them as a reference later on in life, so even if your boss is a tool – make them feel like they changed your life forever!)

– “You can always call me and I’ll help you out with anything you need, after I leave.”  (They’ll never call you, and you won’t ever pick up – but it makes everyone feel like the world won’t end when you leave. Plus, the new person they hire to replace you could care less about what and how you did things.)

– “I’m really going to miss working here.” (Even you aren’t and leaving will be the happiest moment of your life – say it.  They might be the only option you have some day to go back to work when you fail at your new job.)

People have this glorified vision of what happens after they leave a job – like somehow the company will implode and business will stop as they know it.  The fact is, business doesn’t stop, the sun comes up, people show up to work, and they find ways to carry on.  That’s life – organizations move on, even when they lose their best.  Don’t make resigning some historic event, it’s not.  It’s part of this dance we do as employees of organizations.  Be appreciative for the opportunity you were given. Keep your options open.  Don’t burn a bridge.  It’s pretty simple.

 

 

The Difference Between Performance and Potential: A 9-Box Primer for Smart HR Pros

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If you’re like everyone else in the free world, March brings a little bit of a grind.  The hope and promise of the new year has settled into a familiar routine, and you need something fresh to keep you interested at work as a high-end HR pro, right?

Of course you do – that’s why Fistful of Talent is back with a webinar that’s designed only for the real players in HR who like to think long and hard about talent/performance in the companies they serve.  Join us on Wednesday, March 25th at 2pm EST for The Difference Between Performance and Potential: A 9-Box Primer for Smart HR Pros and we’ll show you how to take the next step in your performance management platform by sharing the following goodies:

—A rundown of how smart companies create 2-dimensional performance management systems using performance vs potential, and how that approach sets the table for a host of talent management activities using something called the 9-Box Grid.

—A deep dive into the differences between performance vs potential in any company, including a roadmap for how any company just getting started with performance vs potential can begin building the process to consider both inside their organization.

–We’ll break up the seriousness of the topic by considering where Individual Members of the Jackson Family, the 3 Versions of Van Halen and Husbands/Boyfriends of the Kardashians fall on the performance vs potential scale.  You know, just to help you relate.  And to stop taking ourselves too seriously.

–Since most of you have more experience with performance than with potential, we’ll share some thoughts and data related to common traps and derailers when you build out your definition of potential at your company (hint – the more you tie it to what it REALLY takes to be successful at your company across all positions, the better off you are)

-We’ll wrap up our time together by sharing a list of 5 Things You Can Do From a Talent Management Perspective Once You’ve Launched Performance Vs. Potential/The 9-Box.  Hint – All of the things we’ll share make you more strategic and less transactional as an HR pro, and they let you have high level conversations about talent with the leaders of your company.

You’ve been aware of the ying/yang relationship between performance and potential for years – why wouldn’t you want to help your company get started to understand the same set of truths?  Join us on Wednesday, March 25th at 2pm EST for The Difference Between Performance and Potential: A 9-Box Primer for Smart HR Pros and we’ll give you a great roadmap to refreshing how your company views performance and talent.

REGISTER NOW

The Random Shit They Leave Us

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You know what one of the greatest things about firing or laying someone off is?  The free crap people just leave in their desks when they leave!

Someone at my company left a long time ago and left this ladies brown, kind of chunky, cardigan sweater.  It was one of those that was really comfortable, but not the best looking.  That thing just gets passed around amongst any of the ladies who are cold.

I had to pack up the desk of a guy who was fired for performance once and found an almost full fifth of vodka.  That was a really nice find! And probably the reason his performance wasn’t so good.  Sure you get a ton of pens, staplers, tape dispensers, etc. Office supplies seem to be the bulk of finds.

At one employer I was at after a major layoff the head of HR had what was left of our HR team go collect all the office supplies from all the empty desks.  There was over a hundred people left go that day and the mountain of office suppliers was enormous! We could have opened our own Office Max!

Office lunch and snacks are probably the second most left item. You can a lot of microwavable soups and such.  Candy. Crackers. Chips.  Don’t think that stuff gets thrown away!  Office workers are a direct descendant of Piranhas! You throw random desk food into a break room and that stuff is gone in minutes.

There tends to be a lot of business books left in offices and cubes after someone leaves. I guess that 7 Habits and Good to Great weren’t working so well, so why take them along with you.  I, myself, have an entire bookshelf in my office of business books that I’ve read over the past two decades. I really don’t need them anymore, now they’re basically decoration.  I also have three text books from my master’s HR program that I’ll never crack open.  keeping those were a solid choice.

The one thing you can count on is there are always some clues left behind of why the person is no longer with you, especially those who are terminated.  Usually, you find something thing that helps this person waste eight hours per day. Crossword books, magazines, video game console, workout bands, etc., basically anything you can do at work, except work.

Half used calendars are another thing people tend not to take with them on their journey through life. I could make an entire memorial of past employees by just pinning up their cat and muscle car calendars.  Nothing shows appreciation and tenure like August’s motivational quote of the month!

Of all the random shit past employees leave us, it’s the stories that are the best.  I think you can measure your impact on an organization by the number of stories you leave behind.  If you go to a group lunch or office party, a year later, and there are no stories being shared about you, you probably didn’t have much impact.

What’s your best shit that people left behind?

Privacy is the New Candidate Red Flag

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Have you interviewed anyone recently, and haven’t been able to find anything about them online?

No LinkedIn profile. No Facebook. No Twitter. No Instagram. Google even seem to turn up nothing. It was like the person didn’t exist, yet there she was right in front of you, with a resume, work history, and educational transcripts. A living, breathing, walking ghost.

A social ghost, to be sure.

I had this happen a couple of weeks ago. It was disconcerting to say the least.  Of course, I knew this when I asked the person to come in to interview. It was one of the main reasons I asked her to come in.  It was like I found this mythical creature, this interview unicorn. There was no way I was passing this up.

Besides the resume with verified job history, valid driver’s license, address, educational records and a credit history, it was as if this person never existed.

I think the kids call this a “Catfish”, or at least thats what I expected to have come interview with me. This ‘Susan’ would come in and really be a ‘Samuel’! I’ve been in the game a long time, ‘Susan’ wasn’t going to pull one over on me.

I once had a friend who told me he gave up TV.  I didn’t really believe him, either.  Let’s be real, no one gives up TV.  And, as usual, I was right.  He gave away his TV, but he didn’t give away his laptop, his tablet and his smartphone. He was still watching, trying to act like he saved the fucking world by giving away his TV device. Like we don’t know you have twenty other devices in your house to watch shows on.

But, I digress, back to my social ghost, Susan. (of course, Susan isn’t her real name I changed that, I’m a pro, her real name is Jennifer)

I asked Susan the question we would all want to ask in this circumstance: “Susan can you tell me why you hate America?”

She seemed perplexed by this, almost like she didn’t comprehend what I was asking her, but I knew better.  She knew exactly where I was going with my line of questioning.  Why would a person choose to lead a life of anonymity, when a fully functioning narcissistic life is easily within her reach?

I showed her how if you Googled “Tim Sackett” I, soley, was the first 127 pages of the search results, working towards 130. I explained how I ‘socially’ erased another “Tim Sackett”, the Truck Driver Chaplin, almost from existence. Almost like he never stopped at a truck stop along I80 attempting to save lives in the name of Jesus.  It was a life’s work. My life’s work. I could tell she was impressed.

At the point where I had just about cracked her, she softly spoke one word, “privacy”, spilled from her lips like a small newborn logging onto Instagram video for the first time.

Privacy.  I knew there was something about her I didn’t like.

The interview ended.  So, did her chances of ever getting hired by me.

There is No Kill Switch On Awesome!

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Happy Monday Friends!

Let’s make this week completely Awesome!

Spring is upon us! (well, some of us)

There is no better time to be alive! Well, I hear the sixties were pretty great, and the fifties, possibly the twenties…anywho…

Remember –

No kill switch

 

What awesome stuff are you going to do this week?

 

Double Your Chances for Promotion in Two Easy Steps

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I had a kid reach out to me last week and ask how he could get promoted at his current company.  I call him a kid, because he was probably 20 years younger than I, so I’ve reached that point in my life I can start calling adult professionals, ‘kids’.

Laurie Ruettimann and I had this talk just a couple weeks ago, right after she turned 40. I told her, “I’ve finally reached that point in my life where I have 20 years of solid work experience, but I feel bad about telling people that number!” 20 years of experience sounds old!  I remember when I had five years of work experience and I would try and stretch it to 7 or 8 years of experience by adding in college jobs!

Now, I have the legit experience and I want to make it sound like it’s ten years!

So, this kid wants to get promoted.  He’s got just under 5 years of experience and he’s itching for more.  We’ve all been there. Here’s what I told him:

“You need to do two things in this order: 

1st – Put together a self-development plan with activities and goals and a timeline. Show that you’re working on your ‘opportunity’ areas. (Opportunity areas are weaknesses for the GenXers reading this) 

2nd – You need to make your direct supervisor keenly aware of this plan, and (the most important part) you need to ask that supervisor for help in accomplishing your plan.  Have very specific things your boss can do to help you complete your development plan.” 

We then talked about what some of those things would look like based on what he told me he thought his ‘opportunity’ areas were.

Bosses love to promote people they believe they’ve helped and mentored.  It’s a great ego stroke, and they get bonus points from the organization because they are ‘developing’ talent.  Bosses don’t get credit for hiring great talent.  They get credit for promoting great talent.

It’s Organizational Behavior 101 at it’s finest.

It doesn’t have to be very sophisticated.  Bosses like to promote people that they believe are engaged in their job and the company.  By you taking the initiative to have your own development plan, and not wait for them to offer it up to you, and by you asking them for help, you just doubled your chances of getting promoted.

There are a lot of moving factors in anything like this, but if you are working for someone who is respected in the organization, and you have an above average performance as compared to others in your work group, this will almost always play out well for you.

Want to get promoted?  It only takes two steps.