Category Archives: Trench HR

Can I be Completely Honest With You?

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“Can I be completely honest with you?” is a phrase usually followed by some sh*t you don’t want to hear.  We talk about this concept a bunch in HR.  We need to tell our employees the truth about their performance.  We work to coach managers of people on how to deliver this message appropriately.  We develop complete training sessions and bring in ‘professional’ communicators to help us out on the exact phraseology we want to use.  All so we can be ‘honest’ with our employees.

Can I be completely honest with you?

No one wants you to be honest with them.

Employees want you to tell them this:

1. We like having you work here.

2. You’re doing a good job.

3.  You are better than most of the other employees we have.

4. We see great things coming from your development, and you’re on target for promotion.

5. Here is your annual increase.

Now, that might actually be ‘honest’ feedback for about 5% of your employees.  That means you will be saying a different version of honesty to the other 95% that won’t like you being completely honest.

That is why talent management is really hard.  No piece of software will help you with this one fact.  Most people don’t like honesty.  The cool part of this is that most managers don’t like to be honest. It’s uncomfortable. It causes conflict.  Most people aren’t comfortable telling someone else that they have some issues that need to be addressed, and most people don’t take that feedback appropriately.  You tell an employee they have ‘room for improvement’ and they instantly believe you told them they suck and they’re about to be fired.

So, as managers, we aren’t completely honest.  We tend to work around the truth.  The truth is we all have things we need to get better at, and it sucks to hear it out loud.  If someone tells you they welcome this feedback, they’re lying to you and themselves.  Those are usually the people who lose it the most when they are told the truth.  People who tell you they want honest feedback will believe you’re going to tell them ‘honestly’ they’re a rock star.  When you say something less than ‘rock star’ they implode.

So, what’s the honest solution to this?

Say nothing.  Set really good metrics. Metrics that show if a person is performing or not.  Make sure everyone understands those metrics.  Then, when the employee wants feedback, set down the metrics in front of them, and shut up.  Don’t be the first to talk.  The employee will give you some honest feedback if you wait.  Which will open the door to agree or disagree? Otherwise, you’re just working on subjective.  Subjective and honest don’t go well together.

But, you knew that. I really like having you stop by and read this.  You do a great job at your job. You’re certainly better than all those other readers who stop by and read this.  I’m sure you’re on your way up!

3 Immediate #Coronavirus Rules for Every Workplace!

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I’m not an alarmist, but this Coronavirus thing is getting serious!

While this isn’t a big deal in the U.S. I respect the fact that the CDC and WHO are telling us all we need to get prepared. That Covid-19 is going to have an impact on our daily lives. In HR, we tend to be the ones who are responsible for the preparation of stuff like this in our organizations.

So, what should you be doing at your company to ensure your employees are safe and you stay Covid-19 free!?! (Editor’s Note: Tim is not a doctor or a medical professional, his advice might actually kill you. Continue reading at your own risk.) 

#1 – The Fist Bump! 

The what, what!?! Shaking hands in the U.S. is still a thing. You know I like hugging, but holy crap, a really good hug could kill a person nowadays! That being said, I’ll still be hugging, even if it kills me. I’ll die happy. There’s actually research, from the American Journal of Infection Control, showing that a better greeting to limit virus exposure is a Fist Bump! By the way, a wet handshake or sloppy cheek kiss is definitely going to give you the virus!

That’s right, just a quick fist bump if you must have physical contact with the person you are coming into contact with. Also, stop wearing the masks, there are also studies that have shown those don’t actually work at all and you just creep everyone out!

#2 – If you are sick, don’t be a hero! 

Cue Enrique Iglesias Hero song…Tim whispering “Let me be your hero…” Was there anyone sexier when that song came out and he’s in that stocking cap!? And that accent! Stop it. I’m straight and I’m fairly sure I thew my boxers on stage.

Look if you’re sick, DO NOT come to work. But my boss thinks I’m faking!?! Look, if your boss thinks that, you’ve probably given them a reason and you should be worried. Still don’t come to work and kill our entire company, you moron!

#3 – Cancel your travel to the hot zones! 

No, that’s not the Cayman Islands! Yes, it’s quite temperate there, but we’re talking about traveling to places where they have known outbreaks. Next week isn’t the time to “get back into” China! “Hey Billy, buy a ticket! We’re heading to Wuhan!” Traveling on an airplane is one step away from patient-zero on your best days. I’m fairly certain I’ve had patient-zero sitting behind on three flights already this year!

If you do have to fly to the non-hot zone, be smart. Dudes! Yes, I’m talking specifically to you. I see you in the airport bathrooms taking a leak and then walking out without washing your hands! That is beyond gross! It could kill you! Two words – Antibacterial Gel! Use it. Wear it. Gargle with it! (Editor’s note: Do not gargle antibacterial gel, Tim is an idiot!). 

I’m going on record right now that this entire Covid-19 thing got started by dumb dudes who don’t wash their hands after using the restroom.

So, what have we learned today?

– Fisting good.

– Enrique sexy.

– Dudes are gross.

Stay safe out there my friends and get prepared! This is not a warning! 

 

And the Prize for the Most Money Goes To…

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No one. You don’t give out prizes for making the most money. Making the most money is the prize!

“Hey, Tim, you made the most money! Congrats! Here’s a membership to Netflix.” Um, what? Just give me more money, I’ll buy my own damn membership to Netflix!

You give out prizes as rewards when people can’t make more money.  And the prize for the best customer service goes to, Billy! Good job, Billy! Here’s a gift card to Applebee’s for $25!

Organizations are constantly giving out ‘prizes’. We give out prizes for being the best employee. We give out prizes for finishing a project faster than we thought you could finish a project. We give out prizes for showing up to work every day.

I think it might be the first thing you learn at leadership college. If in doubt, give out a prize!

Don’t have an organizational vision? That’s okay, give out a prize.

Don’t have a new product to deliver to the market? No problem, give out a prize.

Have no clue what you’re doing? We feel you, give out a prize!

Prizes are a nice distraction from mediocrity. There easy and the honest truth is everyone likes winning a prize. Have you ever been somewhere, like a golf outing, where they pick raffle prizes and the prizes are all basically crap from vendors no one wants and people get so excited when their random number gets called! People clap. Hey, look, Mary won a prize! Good for her! Wonder what she’ll get? The tote bag or the portable battery that charges your phone up exactly once, yes!

But, we are put in this position because not everyone in our organizations can make unlimited money. So, we have to find ways to keep the troops motivated, and prizes seem to be the motivational tool of choice. The key to prize giveaways is that everyone has to believe they have a shot at winning, but not everyone wins.

If everyone wins a prize, it takes away from the prize value. If I win a car, I feel like the most special boy in the world. If everyone wins a car, it’s still great, but no as special.

Our greatest motivational tool of all time – the prize. Go give out one today!

 

 

Announcement! I’m Joining the Josh Bersin Academy as a Senior Faculty Member!

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Today, I’m excited to announce that I’ll be joining the Josh Bersin Academy as a Senior Faculty Member!

I’ve run in the many of the same circles as Josh for years and, like many of you, have been always loved and admired his insights and data that he has shared with the community for so long, and I’ve seen him present countless times. So, of course, when he asked of my interest in joining, it was a no-brainer! Josh Bersin is the biggest name in our business!

For the past decade I’ve shared, and maybe overshared at times, everything I possibly could with this community of HR and TA professionals. So, this moves makes complete sense for me, because it allows me to continue doing what I love and sharing now with even more people and growing the community.

What’s the Josh Bersin Academy? 

The Josh Bersin Academy, composed of over 3000 members, is a center for the global co-creation of the future of HR by a Community of Practitioners sharing experiences in spirited conversation about what might be.

Adding expert knowledge to this conversation is the Senior Faculty group chosen by Josh Bersin, who of course, is the Dean of Josh Bersin Academy. Their role is to add expertise to the ongoing generation of knowledge by the broader community.  You can see my JBA bio by clicking on the link. I will be joining a distinguished list of Senior Faculty group to 21, plus of course, Josh Bersin as the Dean.  You can see all our bios here: https://bersinacademy.com/faculty.

What is my role as a Senior Faculty Member? 

Within the JBA platform and each specific course, we break up the members who are currently enrolled in courses into smaller teams/groups to have a better ability to have real, active interactions. As a faculty member, it is part of my role to get involved with these conversations, react, add insight, and answer questions.

Josh also will utilize our expertise for various content and research projects, that will add to the growth and understanding of the JBA members on an ongoing basis.

Why this role? 

As you can imagine, I get asked to do a lot of stuff! And I love to stay busy and try everything I can. This role in the JBA Academy allows me to continue on leading HRU Tech, continue to write and speak, and continue to work with the HR and TA Tech community that I have a passion for. I just need to find a way to clone myself or sleep much less!

Truly, I can’t wait to begin interacting with academy members! Helping share knowledge in our community is something that I really enjoy and it brings me great satisfaction.

So, check out the Josh Bersin Academy. It’s a tremendous way to increase your skills in HR, interact with like-minded professionals, and gain high-level insight from some of the best HR and TA minds on the planet (and me).

The Truly Absurd Power of a Bad Idea!

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Have you ever been caught in a downward vortex of a truly crappy idea that at some point you wondered to yourself, “how the heck did we get here!?”

I like to think I’m the kryptonite of bad ideas in my organization. It’s part of my personality of being a bit unfiltered in my thoughts and ideas. If I think something is a bad idea, I’m probably going to say something. Or at least, I hope I will say something.

Why don’t we stop bad ideas in organizations?

  1. We never want to tell someone their idea is bad. We say things like, “there are no bad ideas!” Of course, there are bad ideas! That’s just a dumb statement. There are ideas that can ruin your company and your career. If some idiot opening shares a bad idea, it should be up to us as peers to point this out and help them out.
  2. The person sharing the idea is in a power position. This one is hard. Well, Tina is the boss! I don’t like her idea, but we have to go along with her or else it will probably look bad and she’ll make sure she crushes my career. This is the worst! If you’re a leader, you need to find someone who will tell you the truth about your stupid ideas.
  3. We all know it’s a bad idea but we’ve got so much already invested we need to make it work. Ugh! My grandmother would call this, “throwing good money after bad”. Well, we’ve come this far, we have to make it work. The best organizations know when to call it quits on a bad idea, take the loss, and begin a new in a better direction.

So, bad ideas grow and prosper basically because we don’t want to hurt feelings or hurt our own careers.

I do think there are some strategies we can use to help get us out of a bad idea. Some things that will allow us to protect our relationships and our careers, and put us on a better path.

If I think of the times that I saw someone’s bad idea blow up in their face, it happened because it was done publicly. If we have the ability to sit down privately with the individual and talk through it, I usually find that together we can create something better, and change a bad idea into something that will work, and it saves face for all involved.

In terms of people in the position of power who have bad ideas, I like, again, speaking to them in private, but also using data and competitive data to try and influence their decision in another direction. I’ve also used a strategy that is a bit risky, but it’s going over their head in a way that seems like you weren’t doing it on purpose. Like, “Oh, I want to share this data with the entire company because I found it so fascinating and thought others would have interest!” Data that shows we should be doing something else, in hopes, it sparks an idea for someone to change.

The reality is bad ideas happen every day in our organizations and it’s up to us to help create a culture where we reward stopping bad ideas. Where we respect each other so highly we are confronting bad ideas as a way to help that person’s career, not point out their failure. If we can get to that point, we put ourselves in a position to take the power out of bad ideas!

HR Managers! Sometimes Executive Compensation is Above Your Pay Grade!

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From the front lines of in the weeds HR Management in Detroit – HR Manager claims to have been fired for whistleblowing on some unfair executive compensation practices!

From the front lines of real HR:

A human resources manager at the publicly-funded Great Lakes Water Authority has filed a whistleblower arbitration case against the agency, claiming she was fired only days after raising concerns about lucrative new retirement benefits for authority CEO Sue McCormick, and how they were handled.

The benefit netted McCormick, a former manager of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, more than $90,000 in additional retirement money in 2018 — an amount so large, it had to be split over two years to conform with Internal Revenue Service maximum retirement contributions by an employer.

Hmmm…sounds fishy…continue:

Though other GLWA employees also received the benefit — designed for former Detroit water department employees who left city employment to come to GLWA before becoming vested in the city’s pension system — McCormick’s bonus under the program was, by far, the largest, said Stephanie Stevenson, a human resources manager with the agency whose job included oversight of employee benefits…

…Stevenson said it seemed as if policies were being created specifically to assist McCormick with her predicament — and were being made without consulting Stevenson, who oversaw benefits.

“This was unfair. It was like an abuse of power — corrupt,” Stevenson said.

Rule number one in HR Fight Club – do not make a benefit change without first consulting the HR Pro in the house!

So, the GLWA decided to terminate HR Manager Stephanie. Did they terminate her because of the whistleblower complaint? “No!” was the exact quote from lawyers representing GLWA. Why was Stephanie fired? They weren’t saying…

Here’s the thing.

Almost every executive makes so much more than the run of the mill employee, and HR Manager, that when you see something like your initial impression is something isn’t right about this! Executive compensation is a different animal altogether!

Now, I don’t know if Stephanie was fired for whistleblowing. But, when you hear the explanation of the additional compensation benefit and its design, whether it was done specifically for the CEO or not, they dotted their i’s and crossed their t’s, and while most employees couldn’t take advantage of this additional benefit, all were eligible.

“Unfair” isn’t illegal and sometimes that’s is so hard to accept. Is it fair this CEO gets a bunch of money given to them when most employees will not be given anywhere near this amount? No. Is it illegal? Also, No.

If I was a betting man, Stephanie, got fired not for whistleblowing, but for probably some stuff she did to prove something illegal was going on, when it really wasn’t, but it felt like it was. Why don’t people come forward with whistleblowing complaints? Because either way, no one wants you around afterward. Rightly or wrongly, a trust has been broken. That’s not right, that’s reality. Funny enough, most HR pros actually know the math on this!

What I find most helpful when dealing with executive compensation stuff like this is to bring a few people into the decision-making process, and have us all together at the same time. I want someone from my legal team, someone from my HR team, and someone from my finance team, hopefully with their CPA. Are we legal, are we following tax laws, are we breaking policy we shouldn’t? Is everyone good? Okay, go.

Executives are hired and fired for making decisions above our pay grade. Sometimes they get benefits that seem unfair and exorbitant. The big question you need to ask, is this illegal or simply just unfair? Those are two very different things!

SHRM-SCP or HRCI-SPHR? HR Pros – Which one should you get?

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I’ve been HR blogging for ten years. You learn a few tricks about blogging after that amount of time. One is you find out what people actually want to read by the search words they use to find your blog and various blog posts.

One of the most all-time most searched for terms that find my blog is:

“SPHR or SHRM” or “SHRM or HRCI” or “SCP or SPHR” or some combination of those terms.

For my non-HR readers, SHRM is the world’s largest HR association. HRCI is an organization that has certified HR pros through education and testing for decades. A couple of years ago, SHRM decided to take that type of activity in-house and do it themselves, which led to competition around who’s certification is better SHRM or HRCI, or which certification should you get SHRM or HRCI?

I wrote about this a couple of times, years ago, and it still comes up and I still get questions about it, so I thought I would do an update on the topic. The first time I wrote about this was in December 2016 when SHRM first announced its move into the certification space. My opinion then was I’m going to have both, and see how it all plays out, but SHRM is the brand name that HR pro and leaders identify with, no one really knows HRCI outside of the HR world.

What’s changed in the past three years? 

Really, not much! It’s played out a little slower than I thought, and there hasn’t been really any big moves like I thought would happen on the HRCI side. My feeling back then was SHRM would slowly bleed HRCI dry and take over the HR certification space. That has definitely happened, but not at the pace I thought it would. I would have thought HRCI would have had to pivot by now or be out of business altogether.

But, a funny thing has happened. HR pros/leaders, by their nature, hate change and are slow to change, so those who had their HRCI certification, have basically just kept at it, instead of changing. If anything, we probably see more people now holding both certifications, which is really kind of silly to pay both fees. In fact, my plan is to not renew my HRCI certification the next time it comes up.

Why?

My feeling hasn’t really changed. SHRM is still, by a mile, the brand name that is recognized in the HR community. The reality is HR pros get an HR certification to better themselves, their career, and their HR knowledge. As an HR pro, when you go on an interview, almost no one is going to question whether you have an SHRM cert or an HRCI cert, only that you have the certification. Also, most executives will identify with SHRM as being the gold-standard, again mainly because the brand is so strong in the industry.

What’s Next? 

In a modern world, what is it that people really need to show you they know their stuff? We all know someone who has a certification in HR that basically sucks at HR, so we go, “well, certifications tell us nothing!” I don’t agree with that. Taking both the SHRM cert and the HRCI cert, those assessments are for real. You just don’t show up, without studying, and pass those. So, there is definitely knowledge that is learned if you have one. But, we know that knowledge, alone, isn’t enough to be great at a profession.

SHRM has launched Micro-credentials, like mini-certifications, where people can dive deeper into certain aspects of the HR knowledge base. I think those have merit.

I think both HRCI and SHRM have completely missed the boat on talent acquisition certification. I’m on the board of ATAP and because it’s newly formed, and mostly volunteer, we don’t have the capacity to make this happen, but someone like HRCI could do it and it would be huge. Corporate TA leaders, more than anyone, struggle to find talent that knows what they’re doing. Again, certification doesn’t mean you’ll be great, but it’s a good first step to show someone actually cares about their profession and educating themselves.

SHRM’s answer to Talent Acquisition was the micro-credential and I got to be an instructor for one of the classes for this credential and the content was really good. But, it’s mainly designed for non-recruiting, recruiters. HR Pros who have to recruit, but it’s not their full-time gig.

More and more, we are seeing that formal education, getting your bachelor’s in HR, etc. It doesn’t have the ROI that it has in the past. This has led to many organizations hiring for positions and no longer requiring a college degree. HR is clearly one of those fields where a degree shouldn’t be a requirement. Some of the greatest HR pros I know do not have a degree but do have certification, and their lack of a formal degree has no bearing on their ability in HR at all. All that said, getting the degree will get you where you want to go faster.

The key to being great in any field is how you educate yourself and keep up on the industry. Too often I find way too many professionals that believe the way you keep up on being a great professional in your field is by showing up to work each day. That is not how you become great at anything! If you do not keep yourself up to date in your field and interact with others in your field, you slowly (or sometimes quickly) become obsolete.

Is there something else I should be getting besides SHRM or HRCI?

I do not feel, in the HR community, there is something else that replaces either one of these right now. There are a ton of new micro-learning, on-demand digital learning sites that are out there (Udemy, Lynda, Khan Academy, etc.) that can augment the things you won’t learn studying for SHRM or HRCI certifications.

Also, I do believe any modern HR Pro/leader has to really work to educate themselves on the HR Technology space that is now a critical component and competency for great HR in today’s world. Neither SHRM or HRCI really go deep enough on HR technology, but you will never get all you need from any one organization.

This is why your HR network of peers and mentors is critical. Networking with HR pros outside of your normal everyday world. Facebook and LinkedIn groups have really been excellent for this, in an online format. Local SHRM groups, DisruptHR, and various other local HR groups are also a great way to network and stay up to date on the latest HR trends and topics.

 

What is this hire supposed to do?

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I’m only talking to leaders today.

We tend to fall into this rut. I have a position on my team. A person leaves. We need to fill that position.

Before you fill your next position, as yourself this one question:

How will this hire bring us closer to reaching our business objective? 

In fact, you might want to ask that question in the interview of the candidate. How are you going to move us closer to meeting our business goals and objectives, and of course, first tell them what those are.

Too often we replace people without really seeking to understand if a certain position is really doing that. Well, we’ve always had a person in this position, so we need to replace this person. But, if that position isn’t really moving you closer to meeting your objectives, maybe it’s the right time to not hire that position, and maybe hire a new position.

Business objectives evolve and change over time. A position you needed five years ago, quite possibly might not be needed today.

I also find that what a certain position is supposed to accomplish sometimes devolves over time based on who had the position. Well, Timmy’s position was supposed to do “X”, but Timmy wasn’t very good at that, but we liked him and now Timmy’s position does “Y”. Really, so do we no longer need “X”?

If any position isn’t moving your department or business closer to your goals, it’s a position you should not be filling. We have a really difficult time as leaders not filling positions on our team that we’ve always had. We love to build our empires, not break them down. The reality is the most effective leaders don’t just backfill positions, they analyze where the real need is or isn’t in their world, and then work to make that happen.

Great leaders don’t backfill positions. Great leaders first decide is this role going to move us closer to meeting our objectives?

Why Do You Go To Work So Early?

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Cooper: You know Dad you don’t have to go to work so early.

Me: Yes I do, someone has to pay the bills, put food on the table, keep the lights on.

Cooper: Yeah, I guess you’re right.

Me: (internal voice) – he’s probably right.

This was a conversation my youngest son and I had a few years ago. We are both early risers, so he and I have spent many mornings up before the rest of the family.

I like getting to the office early for a couple of reasons. It’s usually quiet, not a lot of distractions, so you can get a lot done, and, personally, I just perform better in the morning. I’m more productive early.

The reality is there are a few that I work with that are like that, but I find a bigger majority is probably not as early risers as I might be if given the choice. Therein lies the real issue, “given the choice”. If you were given the choice to start work at let’s say 7 am or so, or start work at 9 am or so, which do you choose?

I’ve always thought it was silly that high schools start classes, for teens, at 7 – 7:30 am. Teens have growing bodies and developing brains, why not let them sleep in and start school at 9:30 am or so? It truly makes zero sense, if we are actually trying to what’s best for children….but I digress…

What about the modern workplace? What time should work start?

I think for the most part, in environments that can manage this, we should allow workers the flexibility to start when they feel they’ll be most productive. If you’re an early riser, great, get in here and kill it. If you like to stay up late watching Netflix and roll out of bed at 9 am, awesome, get in here and do your thing.

It seems easy enough! So, why doesn’t this happen as much as it should?

The early risers don’t think the late risers really put in the hours they should. I come in at 7 am and I leave at 5 pm, I put in 9 hours. You come in at 9 am and you leave at 6 pm, you only put in 8 hours. It’s not fair! Honestly, this is really the main argument and why so many organizations still force employees to arrive at basically the same time!

It’s back to good old fashion clock watching!

The reality is, in a modern workplace, we should care less about hours and more about what actually gets done. If it takes you nine hours to get done what it takes me seven hours to get done, that’s a ‘you’ problem, not a ‘me’ problem. To make this happen, though, we have to have great measures of performance and hold people accountable to those measures.

Ugh, that’s difficult, let’s just stick to making everyone work the same amount of hours at the same time, that’s so much easier…

 

A 30-Minute Commute is All Most People Are Willing to Take!

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We all kind of know this fact. Once you get more than 30 minutes away from your job, no matter how you actually come into work, it starts to feel like a chore. You begin to hate the commute. Doesn’t matter if you drive, take a train, walk, etc. 30 minutes, one-way, is our max!

It’s called Marchetti’s Constant: 

Marchetti’s constant is the average time spent by a person for commuting each day, which is approximately one hour. It is named after Italian physicist Cesare Marchetti, though Marchetti himself attributed the “one hour” finding to transportation analyst and engineer Yacov Zahavi.[1] Marchetti posits that although forms of urban planning and transport may change, and although some live in villages and others in cities, people gradually adjust their lives to their conditions (including the location of their homes relative to their workplace) such that the average travel time stays approximately constant.

I can’t tell you how many times, as a Recruiter, I was talked into believing this wasn’t true by a candidate that then screwed me by ghosting on an interview after driving to the location and seeing it was too long, declining an offer late, started the job but then quickly left because the commute was too long, or we had to over-compensate to make up for the time the person spent on the commute.

Probably one out of one hundred people can actually take a longer commute and live with it. 99% of people will eventually crack if the commute is over thirty minutes. So, what does this mean for us trying to attract talent to our organizations? There are certain locations in the U.S. that are much easier to have a thirty-minute commute than others:

On average, large metro areas with the shortage commute time:

  1. Grand Rapids, MI
  2. Rochester, NY
  3. Buffalo, NY
  4. Oklahoma City, OK
  5. Salt Lake City, UT
  6. Kansas City, MO
  7. Milwaukee, WI
  8. Louisville, KY
  9. Hartford, CT
  10. Memphis, TN

All of these metro areas have the majority of their citizens with a commute time under 30 minutes.

Who have the worst commute times? Think about the largest metro areas, even when you take into account their transit options: New York, San Francisco, D.C., Philly, Boston, Seattle, Chicago, etc.

So, it’s thirty minutes one-way or one hour per day, or five hours per week that the average person is willing to commute. I wonder if this plays itself out when you begin to factor in work from home options?

Let’s say you ask someone to commute one hour each way, two hours per day, but you let them work from home two days per week. Total commute time is still more at six hours per week, but would that make a difference enough to retrain and attract more talent to your organization? I have a feeling it would. It’s worth a test for those who have longer commutes at your work location.

Also, I have seen this done by any company, but I would love to see turnover data by commute time! I have seen data on hourly worker turnover and it’s amazing to see the differences by miles from a worksite in a radiant pattern. Every mile you get farther from the work site, the turnover increases exponentially until you get to about five miles where it skyrockets. So, we know if you hire hourly, low-skilled workers, your best bet for retention is less than five miles from your location (this also is about a 15-minute commute – car, public, walking, bike, etc.).

So often we want to focus on the stuff we control, versus stuff the candidate or employee can control, but we think it’s ‘their’ decision. The problem is, we allow people to make bad decisions and don’t think it will affect us, but it does in high turnover. All things being equal, or close to equal with candidates, take the one with the shorter total commute!