Category Archives: The HR Rules

LinkedIn’s Talent Brand Index Could be Trouble!

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Ok, let’s be as transparent as possible:

1. I’m pissed at LinkedIn like a scorned girlfriend because they won’t let me buy their corporate version LinkedIn Recruiter (not that I need it – I know you can do x-ray searches or use a great product like Scavado for a fraction of the price and get the same info. – but it’s the racialist mentality of it all – “No, you can’t have it because your a bad staffing company and we only give it to good corporate recruiters) – see – scorned girlfriend.

2.  I use LinkedIn every day. Mostly to recruit employees from one company to another company, and someone pays me to do this.

3. I like using LinkedIn – solid U/I and a great recruiting tool, inexpensive.  (we call that a triple threat)

OK – On with the show!

Last week LinkedIn announced a new product at their annual Talent Connect conference, called Talent Brand Index or BrandConnect – or something like that – as you can see I wasn’t invited (which I’m actually not pissed about – I mean I’d like to go – but it’s not like the scorned girlfriend thing). Basically this is a tool/measure of how much your brand is engaged on the LinkedIn site – but it has a number of components baked into the algorithm that make this less than black and white.  I have 3 opinions of this announcement that range in 3 very different psychosis:

Pessimistic View (LinkedIn Haters)

Holy crap – this is just another way for LinkedIn to hold companies hostage over their brand!  Basically, the Talent Brand Index, if I want a higher score, forces me to encourage my employees to get on LinkedIn – the more employees I have on, the higher score I get.  Also, the more products I buy from LinkedIn, the higher my score.  I don’t want my employees to be on LinkedIn because my competition will be pimping them non-stop and I’m bound to lose some.  Plus, they keep using the words “Brand Engagement” that invariably will get confused by people as my “employee engagement” when it really has no correlation.

Optimistic View (LinkedIn Lovers)

This tool is great at showing me where I can increase my “engagement” of my brand within the product.  We trust our employees and want them to network professionally and share our brand with as many people as possible – it’s good for them, it’s good for us.  We believe we have a great place to work and increasing our brand engagement on LinkedIn will only help our recruiting efforts.  Plus, this new tool really, for the first time, gives us great insight to how people outside of our company feel and interact with our employment brand.  It’s great data!

Pragmatic View (The Middle)

If you have a “great” work environment and strong employment brand (let’s say 10% of companies) this is wonderful.  You have low turnover, high employee engagement – this will only help you recruit more folks – and more employees you have on won’t hurt you because they aren’t leaving you.  The other 90% of companies could see some impact from this – if they go out and encourage their employees to actively get on LinkedIn, in hopes of raising your Brand Index score. You have pockets that aren’t pretty and you’ll have folks that get picked off by your competition.  This will then cause you more work.  It’s not to say those people wouldn’t leave on their own – some will, regardless, but I don’t want to throw them a job fair in the lobby of our building. Reality check – most HR shops/companies don’t have the people, the money or the desire to really move the needle on increasing their “LinkedIn Brand Index” score – so this will be a non-issue for most.

Final thought –

I would like those companies who really think this is a great deal to do just 1 thing for me. Will you do that?  Today, go to your CIO and tell them you are going to have the entire Software Development team put their profiles up on LinkedIn – because you want to raise your Brand Index score.  Then let me know the results – if you still have a job, or are conscious.

 

Falling in Love with Your Job

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Do you know what it felt like the last time you fell in love?

I mean real love?

The kind of love where you talk 42 times per day, in between text and facebook messages and feel physical pain from being apart? Ok, maybe for some of you it’s been a while – you didn’t have the texts or Facebook!  But you remember those times when you really didn’t think about anything else, or even imagine not seeing the other person the next day, hell, the next hour. Falling “in” love is one of the best parts of love – it doesn’t last that long and you never get it back.

I hear people all the time say “I love my job” and I never use to pay much attention – in fact – I’ve said it myself.  The reality is – I don’t love my job – I mean I like it a whole lot – but I love my wife, I love my kids, I love Diet Mt. Dew at 7am on a Monday morning – the important things in life.  But my job?  I’m not sure about that one.  As an HR Pro I’m suppose to work to get my employees to “love” their jobs.  Love.

Let me go all Dr. Phil on you for a second – Do you know why most relationships fail? No, it’s not the cheating. No, it’s not the drugs and/or alcohol. No, it’s not money. No, it’s not that he stop caring. No, it’s not your parents. Ok, stop it – I’ll just tell you!  Relationships fail because expectations aren’t met.  Which seems logical knowing what we know about how people fall in love, and lose their minds.  Once that calms down – the real work begins.  So, if you expect love to be the love of the first 4-6 months of a relationship – you’re going to be disappointed a whole bunch – over and over.

Jobs aren’t much different.  You get a new job and it’s usually really good!  People listen to your opinion. You seem smarter – hell – you seem better looking (primarily because people are sick of looking at their older co-workers). Everything seems better in a new job.  Then you have your 1 year anniversary and you come to find out you’re just like the other idiots you’re working with.   This is when falling in love with your job really begins – when you know about all the stuff the company hid in the closet – the past employees they think are better and smarter than you, the good old days when they made more money, etc.  Now is when you have to put some work into making it work.

I see people all the time moving around to different employers and never seeming to be satisfied.  They’re searching – not for a better job, or a better company – they’re searching for that feeling that will last.  But it never will – without them working for it.

 

You Want a Jerry Jones Type Owner

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I’m not a fan of the Dallas Cowboys but I have to say from an HR perspective many of us our missing the boat on Jerry Jones.  Here’s the deal – you’ve got a guy who played college football, made a crap ton of money and decided he was going to buy the Dallas Cowboys.  It’s his team, he pays the bills, he is an owner unlike many NFL owners in that he actually wants to be involved and has background at a high level into the sport.

Let’s back up for a minute.  In business, most of our owners were at one point entrepreneurs/startup types that had an idea and ran with it.  They worked their butts off and became successful and while they might not be super involved in the day-to-day currently – they clearly have the ability to jump back into the mix if they had to.  In many circumstances owners are still the lifeblood of their companies – they drive revenue, they motivate, they live and die their brand.  Not bad traits to have from an owner (or anyone else working for you).

So, why do we hate on Jerry Jones, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys?  Here are the reasons

1. We hate him because he’s wants to be involved with the business he runs?!

2. We hate him because we feel there are more qualified people to run his billion dollar investment?!

3. We hate him because he wants to be involved with every staffing decision that is made in his business?!

You know what happens when an owner steps down and let’s someone else take over operations in a majority of cases?  You get less passion for the business, you get increased entitlement, you get a decrease in knowledge and a decrease in motivation.   It’s shown time after time when original owner steps aside (it’s something I think about often in my new role – don’t let this happen!).  Jerry Jones isn’t bad for Dallas or the NFL – he’s great for it – you won’t find a person more passionate for “his” business to succeed, for “his” employees to do well, for “his” investment to pay off even greater in the future.  You know what you get when you take away “his” or “hers” –you get “yours” and “theirs” – that isn’t better – it’s worse!

The 3 Places You’re Going in your Career

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You know that Career Path you’re currently on – I want to tell you to not get so concerned and uptight about where it’s going because the reality is – it will only go in 3 directions.  I was talking with a young HR pro last week and this person was super concerned about his career path – you know the concern – “I need to be an executive by 35 or my life is a failure” – and he was looking to me for advice.  So, I gave him my career path advice – get fired a couple of times and have your Mom promote you to President! Seems easy enough, I don’t know what all the concern is about.

The reality is – you have only 3 places you will go in your career path:

1. You’ll stay in position (No Move)

2. You’ll get promoted (Move Up)

3. You’ll get fired (Move you don’t want)

Someone might be thinking –  wait – you can have lateral movement or be demoted.  Demotion is being fired, you just couldn’t take the hint and leave.  Lateral move I consider staying in position or no move – all you did was change the color of your office, it’s the same thing.

I’ve gotten to the point in my career where I talk to younger people – just starting out in their career and I say stupid stuff like- “Ugh, these GenY and Millenials don’t get it – you have to put in your time and prove yourself – they’ve done nothing, but think they deserve to move up”.  Right? You say this stuff to don’t you!  Then I remember – I had the same freaking stupid goals – I wanted to be a VP by 35 or somehow I’d consider my life to be a failure (It didn’t happen until I was 38 – and by the time I got it – it no longer seemed important!).  Generations haven’t changed – young people have always want to move up faster than they should and believe they can handle it.

I envy people who have stayed in the same position for 20-30-40 years – COMPLETELY – envy.  To be satisfied with where you are at – not feel that need to push up or out – to chase something that in the end is meaningless – that is a feeling I don’t know – but would like to.   You know – HR Pros/Leaders contribute to this issue – we tell people they are on a career path, we feel the need to show them a career path – we make people feel like if they aren’t “chasing” their career path or climbing the ladder they are somehow less than others.  They aren’t.

 

HR, Meet Your Replacement

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It’s name is Baxter – it costs $22,000 –

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Baxter, though, sits on a gurney and can be set down safely just about anywhere on a factory floor. Its eyes are on a swiveling computer screen and greet any worker who approaches. To teach Baxter a job, a human simply grabs its arms, simulates the desired task, and presses a button to set the pattern.

Another idea behind Baxter is that it will be upgradable. The company plans to update Baxter’s software for free every few months, enabling more complex behaviors such as two-handed manipulation. Early next year, Rethink will also release a set of programming instructions so developers can come up with their own tasks and attachments for the machine.”

Think your new iPhone 5 is cool – just wait until this dude takes over your job.

“But wait, Tim – a Robot could not do my job in HR!”  It can if all you do is transactional stuff…and it will probably have a better attitude.  Plus, at $4/hr true cost over a 3 year period – what do I have to lose!

What are you doing right now – today – in your organization to add value?  Better start doing something – Baxter is coming.

HR Needs to be more like Tuna

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When is the last time you had a Tuna fish sandwich?  It’s been a while for me, because I’m the only one in my family who likes it – but growing up I had Tuna weekly.  I mean it’s the Chicken of the Sea!  Slate recently had an article that made me remember my Tuna days:

Why did Americans fall for tuna? Because it’s cheap and bland. Most of the tuna consumed in 19th-century America was imported in cans from France and served to European guests at upscale East Coast restaurants. Mainstream Americans considered the fish too gamey, until a cannery in San Pedro Bay, Calif., figured out that the steamed white meat of albacore tuna has very little flavor if you drain the fish’s own oil and can the meat with olive or cottonseed oil instead. The company began marketing the product as a chicken alternative in 1907. It distributed thousands of free recipe booklets, which contained mostly classic chicken or canned salmon recipes with tuna as a substitute. Americans found that tuna’s flavor was hardly noticeable in the right sauce, and sales began to rise. The tuna revolution really took off, however, during World War I. European countries, and eventually the American government, bought the inexpensive canned fish to feed the troops.

You feel smarter don’t you!?  Don’t tell me you didn’t learn anything today!

So, the big question is what does Tuna have to do with HR?  Only a question I would ask!

Tuna did for itself, what HR needs to do for itself – build a reputation within your organization – a positive reputation!  Tuna didn’t go out and say we are the best and brightest – come find out what we can do for you.  Tuna went to the consumer and said – you know what – we are cheap, but we taste alright and we can show you how you can make us taste better, and once you use us – you’ll find out you’ll want to use us even more because we are a better value then all those other fish in the sea!

See what I did there – I compared what you do internally in HR to the history of Tuna – I’m losing my mind.

Too often in our organizations we don’t make it easy for our organizations to work with us – we don’t show them how – we just assume they will know how to work with us.  But the reality is, they have no real concept of what HR is capable of, what you’re capable of, until you show them.  How do you show them?  Go spend time with them and find out what they need (not what you can deliver) then figure out the recipe to what they need – a little bit of HR, a little bit of marketing, and little bit of arm twisting and BAM – they’re using you and liking it!

Yep – HR needs to be more like Tuna!

Strategic Napping

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You guys know I’m always on the outlook for things that will make my recruiters more productive – the constant beatings have proven only to be successful in the short-term!  So, when I read the NY Times article Rethinking Sleeping I was a bit, but hopeful, that maybe science has come up with something that won’t cost me more money.  I’ve always been envious of folks that only need 4-6 hours of sleep per night and seem fresh as a daisy – I’m also skeptical since I think most people lie about how much sleep they get and not on the high side.  Most people I run into wear their lack of sleep like a badge of honor – “I only sleep 4 hours per night!” – so you go to bed when? Midnight? And get up at 4am?  Really?!? Reeaallly!!!??? Come on – I’m calling bullshit.  It’s just like the people who tell you they work 80 hours per week – No you don’t – you can’t count your 1 hour each way commute time and checking email on your iPhone as you sit on the toilet before you go to bed – that doesn’t count!

I’m a 7 hour per night kind of sleeper – I go to bed at 11:30 pm – alarm goes off at 6:30am – I’m a no snooze alarm person, wants it goes off, I’m up.  Now on the weekends that changes up a bit – its usually anywhere from midnight to 2am watching movie in bed time until however long I can force myself to stay in bed in the morning which is usually 9am at the latest – again it’s probably a rough 7-9, maybe 9 hours on Saturday and Sunday.  Now, I could say I only sleep 4 hours – because let’s face it – I’m 40ish – around 2-4am I’m up, peeing – thank you old age.  My grandmother is a true 4 hour a sleep person – she is 83 and I think it pisses her off that she actually has to go to bed – I think she would prefer to just keep drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes at the kitchen table all night – but alas, she forces herself to go to bed.  I’m completely envious of her telling me stories of how she is up at 4am, and has to force herself to stay in bed that long!  I keep waiting for those genetics to kick in – can you imagine how much you could get done by only sleeping 4 hours!

‘They’ tell us we should get 8 hours of sleep a night.  We assume that means 8 hours in a row- but new research is showing us that maybe 8 hours in a row isn’t what is really needed to be most productive.  From the NY Times article:

This, despite the fact that a number of recent studies suggest that any deep sleep — whether in an eight-hour block or a 30-minute nap — primes our brains to function at a higher level, letting us come up with better ideas, find solutions to puzzles more quickly, identify patterns faster and recall information more accurately. In a NASA-financed study, for example, a team of researchers led by David F. Dinges, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, found that letting subjects nap for as little as 24 minutes improved their cognitive performance…

Gradual acceptance of the notion that sequential sleep hours are not essential for high-level job performance has led to increased workplace tolerance for napping and other alternate daily schedules.  Employees at Google, for instance, are offered the chance to nap at work because the company believes it may increase productivity.

Here is what I know – taking a nap at work in America, in 99% of our organizations, is going to be looked at as a sign something is wrong with you – unfortunately. We haven’t opened enough minds yet to make this acceptable behavior.  Do I think taking a strategic nap during the day has merit – I do – but would your employees be willing to take an extra hour nap and then work until 6pm?  Doubtful, right?  There in lies that balance issue – if you sleep during work hours, work hours get expanded – and you have to be willing to push your concept of family balance out to the extra time you’ll have not sleeping later at night or early in the morning – that is a big jump in perception for our society right now.

HR’s Worst Enemy

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I’ve been speaking a few state SHRM conferences 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.

Your Strengths Are Killing You

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I’ve always been a huge fan of adult learners ignoring their weaknesses and focusing on bettering their strengths.  This goes against almost every single OD department in the corporate world – where employee weaknesses have to be improved at all costs!  Adult learning studies have proven time and again that after a certain point in a person’s life (usually once reaching adulthood) – focus on improving a weak skill will still only slightly improve even with focused training.  But, you can see better increases when focusing on bettering an adults strengths.  Let me give you a personal example – I’m terrible a grammar – always have been – I see grammar rules as something that are only important to high school English teachers. But, I love to write! Now, I could spend hours on improving my grammar – or I could spend those hours on writing better creative content – then hiring an editor to fix the crap I write.   Seems simple enough – hire an editor – Bam, people will think I’m a better writer.

But what happens when you overuse a personal strength?

I know quite a few people who have been told and given performance feedback that you have “great attention to detail” (by the way I love these folks – I hire them on my team – because they help catch my grammar mistakes!).  You get told this – you take pride in it – you now “really” focus on it – because that is what you’re known for.  Your company has a big project – really important – everyone needs to deliver – time crunch – you get the deal.  You become involved because you want every detail perfect – you want to ensure nothing leaves with an error – seems good, right?  Except for the fact that you can’t deliver on time because nothing is good enough – you keep sending stuff back to get better – to get perfect and you miss deadlines.  One small example in our normal corporate lives – but it shows how a person’s strength, something they are applauded for, can become a weakness.

Do you know what your personal strength’s are?  I bet you probably do – but do you know if you are relying on these strengths so much, they are becoming your enemy?

I’ve been told a strength of mine is that I “will tell it like it is”.  Not a bad strength to have on a leadership team – until it is.  There are times and places where “telling like it is” is very valuable, and their are times “when telling it like is is” is very dangerous.  Remember, not all of your strengths will always be strengths!

 

I Can Do Crazy Better Than You!

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In HR we run into employees all the time that do “Crazy” pretty dang good!  I’m always interested in how we work around crazy.  Almost never do we just fire crazy and get rid of it – we tend to keep it around, we tend to try and fix crazy. I’m not talking about legitimate mental illness – I’m talking about employees who are perfectly “fine” but act crazy for a number of reasons – attention, they love drama, they love pushing buttons, they love being in the middle of shit – you know – work crazy.   We see it every day in our organizations.

I’ve found something that works really well for me in dealing with crazy.  Do crazy, better than the employee does crazy. Sounds crazy right?!  Here’s how it works.  Crazy employees have power because they act crazy and no one wants to jump into their crazy storm.  So, people just stay silent, try to stay away, change subjects, ignore, etc.  These are all great mechanisms to stay out of the crazy storm.  Unfortunately this just feeds the crazy storm and helps turn it into a crazy hurricane!  You see, crazy employees – here silence – silence to them is agreement – now they’ve got justification for their crazy storm because in their mind no one told them they disagree – so that must mean – they agree!  You can’t reason with crazy.

So, how do you stop crazy?  You do crazy better than they do crazy.  But you do crazy under control – you fight a crazy storm with a crazy calm.  But, let’s be clear – you still need to go crazy.  Let me give you an example:

Crazy Employee:  “My boss is out to get me!  Yesterday he told Jill “great job” and he didn’t tell me great job.  I think he’s sleeping with Jill – you need to investigate.  Also, Jill might be stealing – you didn’t hear that from me, but she just bought a new car and we make the same amount, I think – what does she make? – anyway I can’t afford a new car!”

Me: “You know what?  I want to thank you for giving me this information – I’m pulling in your boss right now and we are going to have this out!  Just sit here while I call him in – we are going to blast him!”

Crazy Employee: “Hey! Wait! Don’t call him in while I’m here – he’ll know it’s me that told you.”

Me: “Yeah – but to fire him I’m going to need you to testify at the trial. Once I fire him for sleeping with Jill, he’ll want to fight it – happens all the time – no big deal – we got him!  You’ll do fine on the witness stand.”

Crazy Employee: “Um, I don’t want to do that – just forget it”

Crazy doesn’t like to go public in front of others – crazy works best one-on-one behind closed doors where there aren’t witnesses.  You can stop crazy very quickly by going public and asking them to be crazy in front of others.  I’ve found that if I can do crazy behind closed doors better than crazy can do crazy – it tends to snap crazy back into semi-reality.  Plus, it’s fun to act crazy sometimes – as long as it’s behind closed doors!