Category Archives: The HR Rules

The Slowest Generation Ever!

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Here’s a quick little experiment to take in your office or department:

1.     Rank everyone by performance – first to worst.

2.    Rank everyone by how fast they can actually run.

3.    Check for correlation.

I’ll be honest, I have no idea if there is any correlation, it’s just a feeling I have.  People who tend to move fast, tend to be higher performers in my 20 years of HR Experience.  Also, there was a recent article out in the Wall Street Journal that examined how 25-35 year olds have been slowing down in endurance races as compared to prior generations at the same age.  From the article:

“They’re just not very fast. “There’s not as many super-competitive athletes today as when the baby boomers were in their 20s and 30s,” said Ryan Lamppa, spokesman for Running USA, an industry-funded research group. While noting the health benefits that endurance racing confers regardless of pace, Lamppa—a 54-year-old competitive runner—said, “Many new runners come from a mind-set where everyone gets a medal and it’s good enough just to finish.”

Now, a generational battle is raging in endurance athletics. Old-timers are suggesting that performance-related apathy among young amateur athletes helps explain why America hasn’t won an Olympic marathon medal since 2004.

Of the two Americans who won marathon medals that year, one—Deena Kastor, who is now 40—was the top finishing American woman at the marathon World Championships in Moscow last month. The other—38-year-old Meb Keflezighi—was the top American male finisher at the London Olympics marathon last year. Hunter Kemper, the 37-year-old winner of last month’s Chicago Triathlon, remains arguably America’s top triathlete as he aims for his fifth Olympics.”

So, how did your experiment work out in your office?  Does speed correlate to higher performance? If so, are your youngest employees faster or slower than other generations in your workplace?  Competitiveness, and incoming generations of kids who are all use to just ‘participating’ versus ‘winning’ might also have an impact to this as well.  This lack of competitiveness probably has more of an impact than anyone really understands.  More from WSJ:

“After finishing last month’s Virginia Beach half marathon in the top 2% of the 50-54 age group, Brendan Reilly was shocked to find he’d made the top 1% of the overall field—despite running 27 minutes slower than the personal best he’d set more than two decades earlier.

“I wasn’t thrilled,” said Reilly, a sports agent in Boulder, Colo., adding that “races are turning into parades.”

Is your workplace a race or a parade? 

3 Things That Gurantee Career Sucess!

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I’ve been given the honor to speak to some upcoming graduates at a prestigious university about what it takes to have a successful and sustained career.  Now comes the hard part!  What do I tell these kids!?  My first question to the person who asked me to come speak was, “Have you ever read anything I’ve written?”  She said yes, but I have a feeling she was lying as she frantically Googled “Tim Sackett” and tried to actually read something I’ve written.  Next she dropped the, “we don’t have much money, we can pay you”, which in speaking circles means, this is a one-time gig, so let’s have some fun with it!

I really took some time to think about all those great traits you need to have in having a long term successful career.  Great work ethic, ability to learn new concepts quickly, being adaptable, being disciplined, high attention to detail, getting along with others, having high Emotional Intelligence, finding purpose in your daily work, Perseverance, being trustworthy, taking initiative, managing up, being open minded, a change agent, a savvy networker, of course intellectual fire power, passion for what you do, someone of high morals and values, empathetic, willingness to fail, willingness to succeed, high internal motivation, ability to gain alignment, focused, positive accountability, follow-up skills, creative, pragmatic, ability to gain buy-in, ability to prioritize, works well in a team, works well alone, political organizational savvy, telling it like it is, effective problem solver, being self aware, effective decision maker, your ability to influence, learning agility, technical savvy, being proactive, being a great listener, being a great presenter, being optimistic, being committed, goal setting, expert communicator, managing conflict and making a great cup of coffee are all fantastic traits!  But how could I choose only 3.  That was my mission.  Give the kids 3 things that would guarantee their success in their chosen career paths.

I knew right away there were a few traits I wouldn’t choose, primarily because I don’t have them and, well, look at me, I have a blog, which means I must be successful.  You don’t need these traits to be successful:

1. Good Grammar. Only old HR ladies and copy editors care about grammar.  Once you get past having no mistakes on your resume, you’re home free the rest of your career — unless you want to be a paid writer.

2. Trigonometry.  No one needs Trig really, it’s just a public school torture device to keep kids in check.  Unless you want to be a rocket scientist, Trig is not a trait you need for a successful career.

That’s is really the only traits I could think of that weren’t important to your long term success of your career.

Then it hit me, after 20 years in the HR and Talent Acquisition fields, I knew!  There are 3 things that can guarantee you long term career success.  Here they are in order of importance:

1. Beauty.

2. Family Wealth.

3. DNA.

The first one was really a no-brainer!  Beautiful people always have jobs or job prospects. Let’s face it, we all love hiring beautiful people!  In fact the only reason you have ugly people working for you is there wasn’t a beautiful candidate.  The positive piece of this for the kids is that with enough money you can change your outward appearance and increase your chances for success!

Family wealth was fairly easy as well.  If you come from a wealthy family you can be a complete tool and still have lifetime employment and career upward mobility.  The rich get richer, and so do their kids.  Nothing says great hirer like your CEO telling you to hire so-and-so because he plays golf with me. Opportunities are rare, unless you’re wealthy.

The prospect of coming from the ‘right’ genes having an impact on long term career success intrigues me.  The reality of it is, the only way to have a sustained successful career if you have sustained long term health — that’s your DNA baby!  Some people never pick up a cigarette and die of lung cancer at 53.  Some people smoke 2 packs a day for 60 years and die of old age at 90.  You can’t teach DNA!

I can’t wait to share these with the kids!

 

 

It’s Super Not Stressful Being At The Top

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It’s common knowledge that leaders are very lonely and under super amounts of stress.  Well, at least that’s what we’ve been made to believe from 1950’s research!  There is new evidence out that has found it’s not all that bad being in a leader position.  From Scientific American:

When the executive or the general complains that they are “stressed,” we have to pay careful attention to what exactly they mean. They may have more emails in their inbox than they can get to. They may work long hours. But in most cases they can say no to requests and they can decide when and how to deal with challenges. They have much more control over how their lives are arranged than does the secretary who schedules their appointments or the janitor who cleans their office.

People so crave control over their lives that when control is scarce they will manufacture it. In studies by psychologist Aaron Kay and colleagues, people made to feel that they lacked control believed more fervently in a controlling God. They believed also in a controlling government, conspiracy theories, and superstitions. Someone has to be in control. Lacking control is associated with higher blood pressure, lowered immune function, and a host of stress-related diseases. Control is the essence of power, the linchpin binding status to stress.

So why did the executive monkeys drop dead of ulcers if control protects against stress? It turned out that the study had a fatal flaw. The monkeys were not assigned to be in the executive or helpless groups at random, which is the cornerstone of an experiment. The monkeys who learned how to use the lever to prevent shocks the fastest were “promoted” to executives. Those fast learners may have learned fast because they were especially upset by the shocks. If so, then it was not control that doomed them but their heightened stress response to being shocked. There is a lesson here, and not only in the scientific method. If you are trying furiously to control a situation because you are terrified of what would happen if you don’t, you are not really in control at all.

Turns out leaders have stress, but they also have power to control their environment more than non-leaders.  So, while we want to believe having ultimate decision making power is also powerful and stressful, it probably isn’t as much as those who don’t have any of that power surrounding you. 

Control, or better, one’s ability to control what happens to them is actually a higher stressor than just having a ton things to do, or even the feeling of being under a lot of ‘pressure’. Everyone has pressure, but those who have pressure and no ability to influence that pressure face a level of stress that can actually physically cause them harm to their health.

Want less stress in your life?  Reach a level in your career where you have more control of what actually happens!

Would You Take Performance Enhancing Drugs to Save Your Job?

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It seems like daily we are bombarded by stories coming out in the media of professional athletes who are caught taking performance enhancing drugs.  They risk their entire career by taking these drugs and getting caught.  I’ve often wondered if I was in that position, being a professional athlete making millions, would I take PEDs to sustain or grow my career?  I can’t initially say I wouldn’t.  I’m always thankful for not having been put in that situation, I’m extremely competitive, I’m not sure I would have the will power not to take PEDs if I thought I was failing. Slate recently had a great piece about a former professional football player, Nate Jackson of the Denver Broncos.  Nate was a tight end and was cut from the roster after 6 years and turned to PEDs to get back:

“I sit down in my locker for the last time. It was always a bit out of sorts, full of clothes and shoes and tape and gloves, notebooks and letters and gifts. Do I even want these cleats? These gloves? These memories? Yes. I fill up my box. Six years as a Denver Bronco. Six more than most people can say. Still feels like a failure, though. So this is how the end feels? Standing in an empty locker room with a box in my hand? Yep. Now leave.”

That’s it right?  It’s the fear of losing all that you have.  It doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor, fear of losing what you have is a powerful adversary. I’ve seen a grown man, with a wife and children, and a strong member of his church, sit in down in front of me and lie to my face, because of this fear.  You don’t have to be a professional athlete.

I completely understand this fear, and why athletes do PEDs.  So, I’ll ask you the question, if tomorrow you had a choice, lose your job or take a drug that will save your job, would you do it?

Hit me in the comments.  I have a feeling many people will say they wouldn’t.  I’ll let you know right now, based on my experiences, I’ll be skeptical.  Saying you wouldn’t tells me potentially two things about you: 1. You don’t have fear of losing your job because you have another source income (I run into a lot of women you ‘become’ consultants and talk about how you have to ‘do what you love’, all the while having a husband who is paying the bills); 2. You lack self-insight and/or haven’t ever experienced this fear of loss.

I guess, in a round about way, I answered my own question about what I might do facing the end.  Fear sucks – remember that HR Pros.

HR Pros – Stop It – Facts Don’t Matter

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If I know one thing in life, it’s that HR Pros LOVE facts!

We are the Queens and Kings of CYA, and nothing covers your backside better than a whole bunch of facts written down on a form, with copies of emails, and signatures on forms that said you understood what you signed!  It’s HRs little piece of Heaven.

So, you can understand why this recent study from Dartmouth has me concerned:

For years my go-to source for downer studies of how our hard-wiring makes democracy hopeless has been Brendan Nyhan, an assistant professor of government at Dartmouth.

Nyan and his collaborators have been running experiments trying to answer this terrifying question about American voters: Do facts matter?

The answer, basically, is no. When people are misinformed, giving them facts to correct those errors only makes them cling to their beliefs more tenaciously.

Here’s some of what Nyhan found:

-People who thought WMDs were found in Iraq believed that misinformation even more strongly when they were shown a news story correcting it.

-People who thought George W. Bush banned all stem cell research kept thinking he did that even after they were shown an article saying that only some federally funded stem cell work was stopped.

-People who said the economy was the most important issue to them, and who disapproved of Obama’s economic record, were shown a graph of nonfarm employment over the prior year – a rising line, adding about a million jobs. They were asked whether the number of people with jobs had gone up, down or stayed about the same. Many, looking straight at the graph, said down.

-But if, before they were shown the graph, they were asked to write a few sentences about an experience that made them feel good about themselves, a significant number of them changed their minds about the economy. If you spend a few minutes affirming your self-worth, you’re more likely to say that the number of jobs increased.

Why is this research important to HR Pros?  It shows us that your facts aren’t really the most important factor in trying to influence a decision one way, or another.  As HR Pros we tend to get ready for the ‘big meeting’ by getting all of our facts in line and making graphs for the PowerPoint presentation.  When in reality, you should be working on your delivery.  You could present total B.S. but in a way that is persuasive and have a better chance of getting your way than presenting your facts in your normal way!

Let me put this another way — if your executives think your recruiting function is broken and you can’t find talent, you presenting facts that say otherwise, won’t change their mind. In fact, they actually might think you’re even worse than before! No matter how clear your facts tell a different story.  What do you need do?  You need to do a better job marketing how your function has changed.  Make them believe you’re now different. Speak different, act different.  Even if you continue with the same processes, you need to develop an internal department marketing plan that you’re not the same department!

Our perception, is our reality.

3 Ways Your ‘Cool’ Boss Is Killing Your Career

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My wife and I have saying in our house:

“We never want to be the ‘cool’ parent.”

You know why?  ‘Cool’ parents are the ones you let their kids do things they shouldn’t be doing as kids.   It’s not my job as a parent to get my kids to like me – it’s my job to raise responsible adults who do better for their family and the world in general.  That means we say ‘No’ a lot.  No, you can’t got the movies at midnight. Yes, I’m aware the Brown’s allow this – they also allow their 17 year old son’s girlfriend to sleep over, and the teenagers to drink.  I would rather you shoot me in the head.

You know what’s funny?  I don’t think my kids hate me. (Kids – please don’t comment on this post!)  Kids like having boundaries.  They don’t tell you they like this, but when they have boundaries they act like better people. If you leave them without boundaries you end up with Lord of the Flies.

I’m not saying that being a leader/Boss/Supervisor is like being a parent. Okay, yes I am, it’s very much like being a parent!  Everyone wants to be the ‘cool’ boss when they first start out in a managerial role.  It’s very normal to think this, and go down this path.  What you find out quickly is that employees, much like children, don’t perform as well without consistency.  Things at work are going great, you’re the ‘cool’ boss, all of sudden times get hard, you lose a big client, and you have to make tough decisions, and your employees lose their minds.  This happens because you begin acting in a way you never have.  You begin hearing things like: “You use to be so cool.”; “You seem stressed all the time.”  These are signs that your subordinates think your friends.  Let me tell you a little secret — Friends don’t fire friends.  You are not friends with your subordinates.  You might be friendly, but that doesn’t make you friends.

‘Cool’ bosses who believe they are friends with you, also rarely tell you the truth about your performance.  Why? Because they don’t want to hurt a ‘friends’ feelings.  They hint at it, they run all around the bush, but they’ll never really tell you what you’re doing that is holding you back in your career path.  Here’s an example: “So Tim, tell me what does it look like for a promotion?” (I’ll be Tim the Cool Boss!) “Well, Mary, you know I back you 100%!  If anyone deserves it, it’s you, but it’s not my call.  I’m sure you’ll get it.” No, she won’t.

A ‘Cool’ boss can ruin your career faster than almost any single thing you run into in the corporate world.  While you might think the cool boss is great, the reality is your executive team knows.  They know this person lacks what it takes to move the organization forward, so they are probably stuck in middle-management for life.  A ‘cool’ boss lacks the credibility needed to influence decision makers.  This makes it very hard for your ideas to be seen and heard at an organizational level.

So, what are the 3 Ways you ‘Cool’ boss is killing your career:

1. They aren’t helping you get the most out of your talent

2. They won’t be honest with you and what you need to change

3. They don’t have the influence to move your career forward

How does it sound being the cool boss now?

Do you follow terminated employees on Twitter?

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Did you see what Mike Tomlin, Pittsburg Steelers Head Coach, did last week to the players who didn’t make the final cut of the team?

Here it is from Deadspin: ”

This is pretty much the perfect 21st century NFL story, pairing the coldly impersonal nature of personnel moves with the vapidity of social media relationships. After the Steelers made their final roster cuts, head coach Mike Tomlin promptly unfollowed them on Twitter.”

First, let me say, I love this!   As a fan of most sports, there is nothing more I love than to see a coach go all in with his team, and that’s exactly what this is!   I’ve got 53 on the roster — I’m following 53 on Twitter.  That’s my team.  We live together, We Tweet together!  Whether it’s athletics or business, you want your team to focus and support the team you’ve got.  If that means making a gesture like unfollowing someone a social network, so be it.  We want to win!

Leadership is all about signs and symbols.  While this might seem small and insignificant in the larger scheme of running an NFL team, I love the detail of it!

So, what about you?  Do you unfollow (FB, Twitter, etc.) past employees who leave your organization?

 

Is HR Going The Way Of The Travel Agent?

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Quick: What is your first thought when you think of Travel Agents?

Mine? 1970’s and 1980’s, women working in strip malls, with sunny vacation posters on the windows selling over-priced-all-inclusive vacations and cruises to Mr. and Mrs. Middle America.

Quick: What is your first thought when you think of HR Managers?

Wait! Don’t answer that.

Time had a great piece recently of how Travel Agents might be the most misunderstood occupation in America today.  Most people, if you asked, would believe travel agents are no longer needed.  We have the Internet!  Expedia. Orbitz. Travelocity. Kayak. Why would anyone with half a brain ever use a Travel Agent?!  But, wait.  Here are some facts from the article on the travel industry:

– 8,000 travel agencies in the U.S.

– 64% of all air travel is booked through travel agents – that’s $84 Billion worth!

-64% of all cruises are still booked through agents

Why use an agent?  They give you the customer service you don’t get from an internet site, and solve travel problems.  Does it cost more? Yep.  You pay for what you get.  I had a young employee recently who booked a trip to Vegas on her own. Cheap airline, limited flights. Weather became a problem and flights were cancelled.  Next flights not for another couple of days.  No, we won’t move you to another airline – it’s an act of G*d.  No, we won’t give you your money back, we can give you a voucher for another flight.  No, your deposit for your hotel won’t be refunded.  Vegas trip blown up.  Travel agents wouldn’t have booked that trip.

Does this remind you of any other industry? (Hint: HR)

HR Technology is moving the way of complete manager self-service.  Need to add an employee to your staff – we’ve got a program for that.  What about onboarding that new employee? Got you covered!  Performance Management? Come on, we specialize in that — give us something challenging!  Training? Bingo. What can’t HR Tech currently do, that we do in HR?!

“Hello, Travel Agent, I need to book a trip out of HR!”

What you find out quickly, is your value to an organization is not measured in the ‘tactics’ you do.

Travel agents aren’t about booking your flights. Yeah, they do that, but you pay them for when your trip begins to blow up.  When there’s a mile long line at the airport desk to re-book, and you make one call and have it done for you.  Get to a horrible hotel two thousand miles from home?  Don’t worry, Mr. Sackett, we’ll get you into something nice tonight.

HR isn’t about all those jobs that the tech can do.  HR is about what we can do to help our organizations become more successful.  It’s about having the one on one conversation with the new manager who isn’t getting the most out of her team, and helping her get more out of that team.  It’s about helping a star employee understand their role in the future and why ‘our’ organization values them.  It’s about ensuring our mission, values and vision is carried out across all parts of our organization.

HR technology companies can create a piece of software that can do just about anything.  What that software can’t do is replace your interactions you have within your organization.  Get out of your office today and go touch some employees, properly.

 

 

Has HR Evolved Enough To Allow Napping?

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Have you read any studies recently, or in the past, that said how beneficial naps are to high performance?  I bet you have.  Here’s one I read this week from the Wall Street Journal:

 “In a 2012 study in the journal Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, researchers split 36 college-aged students into three groups. Each group learned a memory task, pairing words on a screen with a sound. Afterward, one group had 60 minutes to nap, another 10 minutes. The final group didn’t sleep.

Upon retesting, the napping groups fared better, as expected, said Sara Alger, lead author of the study and a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Notre Dame.

More interesting, she noted, was that on further testing, including a week later, the 60-minute group performed far better than the 10-minute group, which now performed as poorly as the non-napping group. The researchers concluded that slow-wave sleep—only experienced by the 60-minute nappers—is necessary for memory consolidation.”

The benefits of napping is one of those things that we as a society, for the most part, completely agree with.  You never really ever hear anyone argue against it.  Naps are good.  So, why is napping at work still considered taboo?

Maybe a better question is: do you currently work at an organization where you would feel comfortable taking a nap, at work?

For the vast majority of you ready this the answer is ‘No’.  While the benefits of napping to productivity are unquestioned, we (American Society) still see napping as a sign of weakness, of fragility, of not being able to handle it.  There are a few of those ‘hip’ Silicon Valley companies who ‘allow’ napping, but for the most part who will not find napping rooms in most American companies.  You will not find HR in American companies encouraging their teams to ‘shut-it-down’ at 2pm and having nap time across the company.

Don’t get me wrong, you will find American employees sleeping on the job!  But don’t worry, HR will ‘handle’ that!  I myself have fired employees for ‘sleeping’ on the job.  The issue isn’t if napping is good for productivity.  The issue is those employees getting fired for sleeping are doing it without consent or permission.

I wonder if employees, I even think about my own team, if told — “Hey, from now on out you can take a one hour nap at work!” — would they take advantage?  I’m sure they would take advantage if they were told it wouldn’t effect their start and end times.  What if you told your workforce — “We are now working 8am to 6pm, but from 2pm-3pm we’ll all be taking a nap!”  How would that go over in your workplace.  I have a feeling that ‘taking a nap’ would become a very negative ‘policy’ change!

So, what say you HR Pros — Has HR (In America) Evolved Enough To Allow Napping at Work?

I say, No!

 

 

Should Colleges Give Job Seekers A Refund?

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Can we all dispel the notion that Colleges and Universities are non-profit institutions?  They’re non-profit like hospitals and churches are non-profit!  Have you seen what those types of organizations are building nowadays!   These types of non-profits are not really in business to make a profit, but to grow and keep growing.  They don’t have a ‘profit’ for the simple fact is that they spend each dollar on their ‘mission’, which mainly entails continued growth.

Many recent college grads who started college believing a college education was a way to a high paying, or at least a normal paying, career have become disenchanted with this notion.  College graduates find it more and more difficult to find good entry level professional employment.  Colleges and University marketing machines keep churning out the ‘dream’, though, with little disregard that this graduates can actually get a job.  You see, universities aren’t job placement agencies, they are educational institutions.  People get confused with this – it’s great marketing.  It’s like when that creepy old guy buys the Corvette with the notion he’ll be sexier – he’s not!   You bought into the commercial – “Come to our School! You’ll have a great career!” Not necessarily!

By the way, the U.S. Circuit Courts agrees with the Universities.  You, college graduate, have no right of an expectation that you’ll get a job from attending a certain university. Here is what the courts have to say:

“The court ruled Tuesday in a case involving a dozen unhappy graduates from Thomas M. Cooley Law School, which has campuses across Michigan and in Tampa, Fla.

The graduates claimed they were fooled by rosy employment statistics published by the school. The appeals court, however, said Michigan’s consumer protection law doesn’t apply, and the graduates put too much reliance on Cooley’s job survey of other graduates.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, 3-0, affirmed a similar decision by a federal judge in Grand Rapids…

The graduates who sued Cooley said they had difficulty finding full-time, paid jobs. Shane Hobbs of Pennsylvania graduated in 2010 but has worked as a substitute teacher and at a golf course. Danny Wakefield of Utah graduated in 2007 but ended up managing the delivery of phone books, according to the 6th Circuit decision.The Cooley graduates accused the school of fraud by reporting in 2010 that 76 percent of graduates were employed within nine months. The graduates claimed that should be interpreted as full-time positions requiring a law degree. But it actually included jobs outside law.”

Can you imagine if most companies ran their business like this?   Yeah, I know you just paid $30K for that new car to take you to and from work – but we can’t guarantee that will actually happen!  Would you buy the car?  No, you wouldn’t.   What if a university ran a commercial saying:

“Hey! Come to our university and we Guarantee that you’ll get a job in your chosen career path degree, or we’ll give you a 100% tuition refund!”

Would that change where you went to school?

But don’t fret recent grads, if you didn’t get a job with that degree you just got – the university will more than willing to take you back for that graduate degree! Then you’ll really get a job! Or not – there’s no guarantees!