Category Archives: The Recruiting Rules

The Worst HR Advice I’ve Ever Given

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A few days ago this thought came to me: “What is the worst advice I’ve ever given anyone?’  Usually in a case like this the first thing you think of, is usually correct!  In my case, I came up with a number of things right away, none of which really seemed like the worst advice, and more of me making fun of what other people think is ‘good’ advice. Here’s a sample:

1. Don’t be afraid to fail.

2. Follow your passion!

3. Don’t play office politics.

4. Yeah, go get that Master’s in HR!

5. Just keep it to yourself, I’m sure no one will find out.

See what I’m talking about?!  All of the above statements have been shared as good advice, but I tend to think of them as terrible advice.

Then it came to me. The worst advice I have ever given to an employee in my HR career.  Here it is:

“Just wait and see what happens…”

This advice was given to an employee who really wanted a different position in the company, outside of their department.  It was going to come open because we all knew the person in the position was going to get promoted. I was early in my career, and believing our ‘process’ would help this person out.  Just wait, I thought, and once this person takes their new position, you can post for the their old position.  How naive I was.

The person who got promoted had a ‘plan’.  That plan had nothing to do with my process, or the employee who was wanting that position.  The plan did have the old employee putting one of his buddies into his old position, and seemingly everyone knew of this plan but me.  This was the day I learned that everyone has a plan, and in HR it’s really my job to know what those plans are, and manage expectations early.

The person I told to wait, now didn’t trust me, and truly believed I knew what was going to happen.  The reality was, I should have known, so I really couldn’t blame the person for being upset with me.  My own bad advice probably taught me more about HR than almost anything else I have ever learned in the profession.  As soon as you hear of possible moves, you better get involved.  Waiting to see what happens usually ends up with stuff happening, without you knowing!

5 Steps To HR Success

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Yo! I’m on vacation this week, don’t try and come rob my house, it’s a ‘staycation’!  I’m going to run some oldies but goodies so I can let my creative juices focus on Gin and Tonics. Here you go:

I was reminded last night that success doesn’t just come to you, and it might not necessarily be about hard work and attitude – like your Dad would always say.  To often we (the collective lot of us!) want to believe success is like the lotto – at least to often we hope to get success that way – one day you don’t have success, then the next day success somehow miraculously finds you!

Sorry. Doesn’t usually work that way.

But one thing we over look is how important success is to finding success.  Here’s what I mean:

Directions for Being Successful –

Step 1: Find a little success

Step 2: Find another little success

Step 3: Find another little success

Step 4: Repeat steps 2 and 3 each day

Step 5: You are successful

I know, directions are hard to follow for some people, so let me give you an example.  You feel like a failure at everything – job is going well (or you don’t have one), relationships suck, you’re a little soft around the middle (i.e., fat) – basically you feel like a failure, nothing is going in the right direction.  Guess what? When you wake up tomorrow you won’t magically be successful – no matter how hard you wish it, pray it, want it.  You have to find some sort of success, no matter how small.  Maybe that success is eating one less Twinkie than you did the day before – yesterday I ate 8 Twinkies – today I only ate 7!  Don’t let someone tell you that’s not a success, because tomorrow I’m only going to eat 6 and before you know it I’m going to kick this Twinkie habit!

I works with everything.  Not recruiting enough candidates for your organization, can’t get anyone to pick up the phone and talk to you – today make one more call than you did yesterday – only 1 – that is a success, because tomorrow you’re going to do that again, 1 more than the day before – small success steps until you’re just one big giant bag full of success!

People who are successful and throw it in your face suck!  They suck because they act like they’ve always been successful, but they haven’t.  It came to them a little at a time, until they could no longer feel what failure felt like.  You see success is like a drug – you need a little to want another hit, it’s addictive.  That’s why you need to feed your mind a little everyday – we can all find those little successes each day – the key is to find them every single day – don’t miss.

Michigan HR and Talent Pros!

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Hey, just getting back from SHRM’s 2014 National Conference and it’s just one more reminder to me why I love going to HR conferences.  I get to meet new HR folks, who are passionate about HR and Talent!  I love that!

Here’s what I want to do.  I want to push myself to meet one new HR person, face to face, in Michigan for the next 52 weeks.   Let’s connect, and let’s get together.  Here’s my information:

Email – sackett.tim@hru-tech.com

Phone – 517-908-3156

Twitter – @timsackett

Reach out to me and let’s schedule a time.  I’ll come to you, or we can meet at some place close.  Coffee, lunch, an ice cream cone, a Diet Dew, whatever, let’s just make this happen.

Send me a message.  I want to fill up my calendar.  I’m in Lansing, but I’m in the Detroit Metro area a lot, also close to Grand Rapids, etc. Let’s face it, I’m centrally located and driving an hour or so, isn’t a big deal. The connections will be worth it!

Let’s do this!

Come Have Breakfast with Me at SHRM!

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Okay, it’s not really breakfast, but it sure is breakfast time!

I’m speaking at SHRM National at 7am on Monday June 23rd in Orlando.  The title of my session is “What Your CEO Wishes HR Would Do!“.  It’s a fun session, will kick off your day at SHRM with a lot of energy and some laughs.  Plus, I’ll also give you 6 things you can start doing the next day to increase your influence in your organization, and get your CEO to fall in love with you – not marriage love, work love!

I promised SHRM I wouldn’t swear, so I’m going to try and make this a PG 13 version of what I would normally do.  They gave me a Mega-Session, which means I’ll have a big giant room, and a 7am time slot, which means I’ll have 50 people show up.  It’s a nice way to keep my Ego in check.  “Hey, you’re really popular, we’re going to give you a big giant room, but just to screw with you, we put you on during a time when normal people will be sleeping!”

Please, please, if you come out at that way too early time to see someone give a business presentation, stop by afterwards and introduce yourself.  To me, that is the real reason I love speaking at events, I get to meet other great HR Pros from around the country!  I’ll even give out hugs, even if you don’t want one! Because I’ll be all hyped up on Mt. Dew!

I promise I’ll be on my 3rd Diet Dew by the time 7am rolls around on Monday, which means I’ll be talking fast, probably saying things I shouldn’t and having fun!

See you all in Orlando!  At 7 freaking AM!  Ugh, it hurts me to even think about it!

Sackett’s 2014 Guide To Whom To See At SHRM!

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The big annual SHRM National Conference happens in a week or so in Orlando.  I’ll be there.  SHRM is letting me speak again this year, which is cool, I’m as subversive as SHRM gets which makes it fun for me.  I always get a lot of SHRM dignitaries that show up to make sure I don’t say anything inappropriate, which makes me get very creative with my words, and if you read my blog you know that list of words is roughly around 350.

To combat the possibility I might slip up they put me at times they hope no one will show up.  This year I’m on at 7am on Monday!  Yeah, 7 freaking am!   Good thing for me I’m a morning person and I drink giant amounts of Diet Mt. Dew – I will have one on stage with me! If you bring me one, I’ll line them up and try to knock them all down in my hour and fifteen minutes!

Bobbi Wilson from Huntsville, AL SHRM (she’s good people, connect with her!) asked me who I would like to see speak at SHRM, besides myself, and I thought it would make a good post, so here’s my Top 10 don’t miss presentations at SHRM!  First we have to lay down some rules of why and who I will choose:

A. I’ll always choose entertaining speakers over non-entertaining speakers.  It’s an HR conference, we’ll have our share of boring ones!

B. I like practitioners, but don’t get too caught up in that.  Most of the best speakers used to be practitioners who found out they’re pretty damn good speakers, so they went the consultant route and doing very well.  Many practitioners are knowledgeable but can’t speak a lick!

C. Titles mean a lot.  If you can’t come up with a creative title, my guess is you can’t come up with a creative presentation.

So, here’s who I will see if I have time in between networking with all the great HR Pros who come to SHRM (I usually get more out of the networking than the presentations!):

1. Tim Sackett, SPHR – Monday 7am – “What Your CEO Wishes HR Would Do!”  – I hear he gives out hugs after his presentation! Plus, he’ll be all jacked up on Mt. Dew!

2. Jonah Berger – Tuesday 2:15pm – “Crafting Contagious Ideas“ – this might be the only session I will actually attend. This dude is brilliant and a great speaker. He’s my #2 behind Malcolm Gladwell.  You should not miss this.  #Fanboy

3. Jennifer McClure – Wednesday 10am – (friend alert! At some point Jen and I will share a Sprinkles Cupcake during SHRM – you’re not invited!) – “The Business Case for Building Effective Business Leaders“ This is actually the worst title in the history of SHRM that doesn’t include “FMLA” or “EEOC”, but Jen is a pro’s, pro who understands how to get a session accepted at SHRM.  The title has to be vanilla!  Don’t hold that against her.  She’s really good and has a cult following of HR ladies who love her!

4. Gregg Tate, GPHR – Tuesday 10:45am – “Adidas: How They Created Their nWow (New Way of Working) Company Culture” – I’ve seen the Adidas guys speak before and they’re usually good with a good story.  Insider tip – see how they pronounce “Adidas” – many insiders from Germany do it differently than we say in the states – you can’t get it out of your head!

5.  Mike Reardon – Monday 10:45am – “Sustaining the Disney Culture Through Selection, Training, and Engagement”

6. Brad Karsh – Monday 2:00pm – “Once Upon a Time…Four steps to Using Storytelling to Deliver Unforgettable Presentations” – This is the most underutilized skill in HR, period. You’ll be a better HR Pro if you have this skill. Not just for presentations but increasing your influence throughout your organization.

7. Chester Elton – Monday 4:00pm – “All In: How Great Leaders Develop a Culture of Belief and Deliver Big Results” – Chester is a good speaker. Doesn’t matter what he’s presenting, he’s probably better than most at that time slot. He’s polished and will deliver a good show.

8.  Cy Wakeman – Tuesday 7am – (Cy has the session of death – no one wants to get up after partying Monday night for a 7am session!) “Reality-Based Rules of the Workplace: New HR Foundation to Boost Employee Value and Drive Results” – Cy knows her stuff!  I like going to presentations where I’m going to hear from someone who actually knows what they’re talking about, and she does!

9.  Michelle Smith – Tuesday 4pm – “Next Practices Leadership: Driving Growth & Innovation in a People-Led Economy” Michelle is from O.C. Tanner and they’ve got some great research on engagement, what works, what doesn’t – well worth the time to see her speak to get that data!

10. Vendor Show – Every day, all day – Pick out three kinds of technology you might bring into your HR shop in the next 3 years (digital interviewing, automated reference checking, assessments, recruiting tools, metrics, etc.) and good spend some real time demoing those products.  It will be some of the most valuable time you spend at SHRM!  Part of our job in HR is to know what we’ll be using in the future, this is where you’ll find that stuff!  Scout out the small booths in the back aisles.  There will be companies there that you haven’t heard about, that in three years everyone will be using – that’s really, really cool!

Connect with me.  One of my favorite things to do at SHRM National is to meet HR pros around the world who read my blog.  I get in Sunday, leave Wednesday.  Tweet me, email me, call my cell, stalk my session – but let’s connect in a real way (okay I mean hugging!).

That New Job Smell!

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Was on the phone with a friend of mine last week talking about their new job.  He had all that passion you hear from folks who just start a job!  Everything is new, it’s cool, it’s fun, it’s engaging.  He said it’s like ‘that new car smell’, you want to be able to keep it as long as possible.

He’s right.  He’s a pro, he gets it.  He’s experienced enough to know the new job smell, like your car, doesn’t last forever. In fact, you probably have a one to two year window of enjoying that smell, until it becomes the grind.  That’s the challenge, right?  How do you keep that New Job Smell as long as possible?

It got me to thinking about how to extend the new job smell.  I to have been victim of a job losing the great new car smell.  Here are some ideas for extending the great feeling of a new job:

1. Connect with people, frequently, from outside your company.  Why?  Because the grass isn’t greener, but you wouldn’t know that because you never talk with people who are on that grass!   When you’re out with people from other companies, what you realize quickly is it’s basically all the same.  We are all grinding.  It makes your job smell a little better when you return.

2. Connect to your industry.  I took a job once and immediately knew it was a wrong decision.  The culture suffocated me!  But, I had payments, I had kids, I had a career to protect, so I grinded it out.  How?  I threw myself into HR.  I started writing. I started volunteering in my profession. I connected more.  I got engaged more than ever, in a job I knew wasn’t the best fit.  I brought my new car smell can of air freshener with me to work each day!

3. Get involved with the business.  HR job started losing it’s new smell?  Go out and get involved in the actual business of what you do.  If you make widgets, find out how those are made. Work with your operators.  When I worked for Applebees, 90% of what I did was HR related. The other 10%?  I washed dishes during lunch rush hours, I made Pico De Gallo, I learned how to mix drinks (okay, I already knew how to do that but it was fun!), I learned how to do training, I helped develop sales and marketing campaigns, etc. Operations has many pain points.  Uncover those and help fix them.

It doesn’t happen with every job, but most jobs come with that new job smell.  It’s completely natural for all of us to have an internal clock of when that job begins to smell old.  For some people it’s two years, some five, heck, for some it’s twenty-five!  The key is understanding that’s what it is.  It’s not the job, it’s you.  No, you don’t smell, it’s you believing the job now sucks, when it’s probably just the same as the first day you stepped into your now junked up office.

Figure it out.  Clean it up.  Another new job isn’t going to solve this problem.

What is your Favorite Job Board?

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Funny thing happened last week.  Glassdoor sent me one of those email surveys that companies send out. You know the ones – please fill this out, it only takes 5 minutes and if you do we’ll send $5 to cure dyslexia of Whales in the Eastern Arctic.   Of course I support Whale dyslexia so I did it.  Here is the first screen shot that came up:

Glassdoor surveyNotice anything interesting about the list of ‘Job Boards’?

Yep!  You caught it – LinkedIN everyone’s favorite job board 2.0 made the list.  I can honestly say, this is the first time I’ve ever seen LinkedIN (LI) described by another vendor as a Job Board.  I think that is telling to how LI’s competition are positioning themselves to go after some of that LI cash!

Beyond LI, CareerBuilder and Monster both have been working hard to shed the old Job Board tag as well.  No one wants to be known as a Job Board any longer.  Although, job boards still have a very valuable spot within the industry.

John Sumser, wrote a piece over at HR Examiner last week that describes this evolution brilliantly:

“The future of job boards is in competition with its customers some of the time. This isn’t really new, but we’ve forgotten that the core business model is a market of competing self-interests. While it is delightful to imagine a world where all candidates know about all jobs and vice versa, the reality is more mundane.

If you are a big brand (and there are 3,000 or 4,000 of those), the existing value of the company’s market awareness covers the cost of candidate acquisition. If, on the other hand, you are one of the several million brands no one has ever heard of, you have a different problem.

That’s where job boards come in. Companies that are expert in acquiring and aggregating audiences (not data) can help employers find workers. It turns out that this is an extremely valuable communications channel.

Where big brands are becoming their own distribution channels, little brands need help reaching the people they need. Job boards are less useful in the big enterprise game and way more useful everywhere else.”

One telling miss from the list?  What about Indeed?  Aren’t they the biggest job board of them all?  Also, is The Ladders still in business?  I haven’t heard form them in 2-3 years!

5 Retention Fixes – No Money Down

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I love SMB HR shops (SMB – small/medium sized businesses) for a number of reasons, but none more than for the simple fact, smaller sized HR shops are forced to be more creative because of less resources.

Creativity and SMB HR shops, remind me of my Grandma. Grandma grew up in the depression.  People who grew up in the depression have creativity skills to burn!  They had so little, but found ways to fill their life with so many things.  Lack of resources didn’t stop them, it unleashed their creativity!  Creativity is the most underrated HR skill out their for high performing HR shops.

Having worked in big HR shops the one thing that frustrated me most was sitting around in large meetings, trying to figure out how to “fix” retention – and listening to all the ways and how much money it was going to cost.  In the end I always came back to, if we just take all this money we are going to spend on the “fix” and just go out and hand to the employees, we probably won’t have a retention problem.  Large HR shop folks don’t like to hear that!  So, for you SMB HR shop folks out there, with little or no money to spend on increasing your retention, I came up with a few ideas you might want to try before you go spend all that budget money on programs with little return.

No Money Retention Fixes:

Fire the manager with the lowest retention.  You have the data, you know who is turning people over. Your organization needs to send a message that managers, not HR and not the CEO, are responsible for retaining talent.  This has to be the first step!  Your leaders have to have a clear understanding it is their job to retain their employees, and it’s your job to hold them accountable for it.

Measure it by Department, and post it publicly for all to see.  No, don’t just share it in meetings.  Post it up in the lobby, down the halls, everywhere!  Then just wait.  It will almost change overnight.  No one likes to be at the bottom of any list, and have everyone know it.

Fire your worst performers – then use that money to compensate your best employees more.  It’s a wash.  Your worst employees aren’t helping your productivity anyway, and your best will appreciate the increase, appreciate you noticing the bad people were taking away from the team, and they’ll give you more discretionary effort.  The result – same cost (actually less if you factor in benefits, taxes, etc.) more productivity, a little less headcount.

Have your senior leadership talk about retention publicly, constantly.   That which gets measured will get changed, that which gets measured and has the eye of senior leadership will get changed much quicker!

Institute a “Save Strategy” for employees who want to leave.  Save Strategy? If an employee puts in their notice, have them go meet with your CEO and explain to her why they are leaving. You’ll be amazed at the results and how many people will change their minds.  Some people just want to know you care, and sitting down for some one-on-one with the CEO, shows that a whole bunch. Plus, it’s much cheaper than finding their replacement!

 

Revenge Hires

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Sometimes you just can’t make this stuff up!

From the land of Bad HR comes something I’ve only heard about as urban legend, the Revenge Hire!

A revenge hire is when someone hires a person to stick it to another person in their organization.  I can happen in a number of ways.  Here’s a few:

1. The Fired Re-hire:  This is when an employee gets fired by one leader, then another leader in the same organization hires that person back into a job that is almost exactly the same.  Usually this happens when the first leader and employee just had a major personality difference, and another leader saw real talent in the employee, and possibly, thinks the original leader is a tool.

2. The One Level Up Hire:  This is when your supervisor overrides your decision not to hire, and makes the decision to hire someone you didn’t want.  I’ve seen this happen within a department where the executive had a relative interview and the department manager didn’t want to offer, but was forced to hire the person anyway.  That always turns out really good in the end…

3. The HR Hire:  This is the one that just happened to me!  The one thing we know as HR Pros is, we really don’t ever hire anyone or fire anyone (unless it’s within our own department).  We do a whole lot of advising on hiring and firing, but ultimately it’s up to each leader to make these decisions.  Unless, there’s some sort of issue at play where HR is going to pull their ultimate legal trump card and make the call on their own.  This almost never happens!  For me, the manager wanted to hire one person, HR wanted to hire another person, the reason had to deal with some background issues with the managers person.  HR pulled their card, hired their person, the manager was not happy.  Ultimately it took about four weeks for the manager to sabotage the HR hire, then she went over HR’s head to an executive to make the hire she originally wanted to make.  Revenge hiring at its best!

Revenge hiring is like cancer. If you have it in your organization you need to cut it out immediately.  It’s not something a healthy organization can have.  As an HR Pro I always put a stop to it the moment I heard about it.  Each time it happens the leaders involved act like it’s totally something different and not a revenge hire.  They have to do this because the alternative should get them fired! It’s to think of a more unhealthy behavior from a leader within your organization.

What about you?  Any good revenge hire stories?

 

The 8 Man Rotation 2013 Edition

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I’ve got some buddies in the HR industry: Matt Stollak, Lance Haun, Steve Boese and Kris Dunn.  Five guys who like HR, love sports and we all write about it many times throughout the year.  Back in 2010 we decided, with the majority of heavy lifting done the Professor, to put all these posts together as an annual ebook.  Today we release the 2013 edition of The 8 Man Rotation.

The title “8 Man Rotation” comes from a basketball concept where 8 players are rotated in a normal playing group.  We only have 5 of us writing for this, but 5 Man Rotation isn’t really a thing.  Let’s face it, it’s our book, we’ll call it what we like.   If you like HR, Talent and such, and have a passing interest in how this might all relate to the popular sports stories throughout the year, this is for you!

You can check it out on The 8 Man Rotation site.

Also, check out the forward by Robin Schooling!