Category Archives: Trench HR

The Death of “No”

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Want to make a huge change to your HR career? No, really?

Okay, do this one thing:

Stop using the word “No”.

That’s it. Just stop it. Don’t say “No” ever again. HR pros lose credibility faster than anyone else because we are known as the “No” police. Employees, hiring managers, vendors, everyone comes to you expecting, knowing you will probably have one answer to their question and 99.9% of the time that answer is “No”! Or a variation of “No”, like “I need to check on that and get back to you”, which is just a “No” with an added delay so you don’t have to say “No” to their face.

HR Pros need to stop saying “No”.  As soon as you say “No” people withdraw from you and stop listening. You become the same old HR person they’re used to dealing with. You just got lumped into the heap of other crappy HR pros they’ve known in their career. Over one little stupid two-letter word.

So, what should you do instead?  Say “Yes”! Say “Yes” to everything and everyone!

“Tim, can we fire Jane?” 

“YES!!!”  “Yes, you can! Do you want to fire Jane now, after work, on Friday! Let’s do this! Yes!” 

Instead, we say, “Well, slow down, do you have the right paperwork? Have you followed the steps? Have you…” All these are “Nos” in other forms! As soon as you start down this path, your ‘business partner’ shuts down and believes you are not a partner, you’re a typical no-help HR person.

But, I know the documentation is important! I still say, “Yes!” It just sounds a little different:

“Heck, Yes! I’ve been waiting to fire Jane’s lazy ass for years! Let’s do this!” 

Now, what happens? I mean after your hiring manager picks their jaw up off the floor?  They come forward! The want to hear more. They weren’t expecting this! I also, follow it up with something like this:

“Just a quick second before we shoot Jane, I need to let the CHRO know we are doing this, totally supportive! But we’ll probably end up in court knowing we’ve got no documentation, but don’t worry we’re still doing this! I’ve been to court and I can help you prepare for your questioning on the stand, we got this!” 

It’s around this point where every hiring manager does one thing:

“COURT! I don’t want to go to court!” 

Well, Okay, I can help you with that, let’s make a plan!

Never in there did I say “No”, and in the end I got what we both wanted, and the hiring manager felt supported, not like I was against her.

Can we please kill “No” already!

Should Employers Be Looking for Lifetime Employees?

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I think we all are being sold a big fat bag of lies!

Okay, not lies, but definitely a very narrow skewed view of the truth. Case in point, you are now supposed to believe that you don’t want to work for one employer for your entire career.

Do you know why you’re supposed to believe this?  Because idiots like me, and the media, keep spoon feeding you study after study that shows younger generations don’t want to work at the same employer for their entire career.

Okay, I get that. When I was 23 I didn’t know what I wanted to do next weekend, let alone 40 years from now!  But, because younger generations want this, now we all want this, apparently.

This isn’t just an employee issue either. Organizations are now supposed to believe they no longer want lifetime employees. You, as an employer, should just sit back and watch employee after employee walk out your door to do the exact same thing at your competitor. This is the world we live in, Tim. Why would I want an employee to stay with us for 40 years. I need to get fresh eyes and new experiences into our organization.

I recently met with a very successful employer in southern Indiana. A tech company that most people will never know, even though they have stuff in your computer you use every single day. They’re basically a ‘guts’ company. They put high tech stuff into stuff you use but never see. They want lifetime employees.

They take an extremely long time to hire. Fit to them is paramount.  If one thing doesn’t ‘feel’ right with a candidate, they’ll wait to find one that does ‘feel’ right.  It’s a strong culture organization. Proud people, almost zero turnover and they are highly profitable. They walk away from talented candidates all the time. Skill is important, but it’s not as important as fit.

There are not enough of these organizations left. Too many organizations today are only hiring for skill. When you only hire for skill, you get the work environment younger generations are telling you they want. One where they don’t want to stay forever!

When you hire for fit as your primary focus of selection. Meaning, skills are important, we want smart people, but all things being close to equal, fit will determine the hire. Fit is so important that if we can’t find the ‘right’ fit, we’ll leave the position open until we can, regardless of skill.

Here’s my deal, I think employees do want to work for one company for a lifetime.  I think the reason you see anyone leave your organization has very little to do with them not wanting lifetime employment  and a ton to do with how they fit in an organization. Sure, you’ll always have talent that is capped out and needs to move to grow, but even then I think those people would prefer to stay and grow.

Hire for fit. Teach the skill. Enjoy high tenure, high performance, and better profits.  So, yeah, start looking for lifetime employees!

Student Loan Debt will end up being an Employer Problem

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Take a look at this chart:

Screen Shot 2016-08-10 at 2.05.48 PMBasically, what this chart is showing you is that America has a massive student loan debt problem.  Want to know what the next ‘housing crisis’ will be?  It’s right here in this chart!

The average student is now leaving college with over $35,000 in debt. This has a trickle down effect that college and universities could care less about, the government could care less about, and every Presidential candidate could truly care less about.

I have friends in High Education who will be pissed I say that colleges don’t care about this problem, but they don’t. They’re in the business of empire building. Listen to Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast “Revisionist History“. He does a three-part series on how broken higher education is, and there is no easy way out!

Don’t kid yourself, Hill or Trump, isn’t going to help those in debt. They might try to solve this issue for future students, but those poor saps who already signed loan agreements will be on their own! You can take that to the bank.

So, this becomes your problem, the organizations, and companies that hire all these graduates with all this debt.

How is it your problem? 

1. Debt causes stress.

2. Stress causes problems – lack of productivity is just one that will directly impact all organizations.

3. You have to solve the biggest problems in your organization.

4. This will soon become your biggest issue.

5. Financial wellness programs aren’t equipped to handle a problem of this magnitude!

What should you do?

Do you really want to know? This might not be very popular!

– Stop requiring a college degree for employment in your organization. Companies and organizations have actually contributed to this problem. It’s the college or prison mentality we’ve forced upon kids. “You must go to college or you’ll have no options!” Well, except for almost any position we hire for, but we’re lazy and like to use an arbitrary piece of paper as a screening tool.

– Develop ‘Apprentice’ programs for a modern age. Why don’t we have Sales Apprentice Programs? Bright-eyed-bushy-tailed kids right out of high school who still believe they can be anybody. Why aren’t we teaching them ourselves?  No, let’s send them to college to learn how to drink beer first, then we’ll teach them on our own. You could do the same thing for almost any role you have – many engineering/technical roles included!

– Develop programs that assist your employees in paying down this debt faster and with less interest than they currently have. Yes, there is a retention aspect to this. Yes, this will require some service as a payback. Yes, this will help your employees be less stressed!

All of these cost money to organizations and companies, but you need to make a choice. Do you want to control that cost yourself, or do you want to deal with in the future for everyone you hire? It used to be that companies invested into their workforce. Then we got lazy and tried to throw this onto high ed. Turns out that doesn’t work too well.

Get ready kids! Employees with big giant monthly debt payments are coming your way and they won’t be very happy when the reality of what they did comes crashing down upon them. Have fun with that!

 

How did Monster Lose Out in the Job Board Wars?

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I’ve been a Monster customer for at least fifteen years.  I’ve used Monster in four different companies that I’ve worked for. I also use (or have used) CareerBuilder, LinkedIn, Indeed, and Dice. So, I’ve got experience dealing with large spends on the Job Board side.

Having a presence on Job Boards is part of almost every recruiting strategy that’s out there, it’s one place most organizations need to be, I truly believe that. If you’re not, you’re going to miss a pool of talent.

For those who don’t know Monster was purchased this week by multi-national staffing and RPO firm Randstad. I’m not going to speculate on why Randstad would buy Monster, but there’s no doubt Monster had a ton of data and clients that a staffing firm would find desirable.

My question is why did Monster lose out in the Job Board Wars?

In the big Job Board game, there are really only three players: CareerBuilder, LinkedIn, and Monster. Dice and a bunch of niche players in that category will always be around if they can actually attract talent to their niche. Here is the reason I think Monster couldn’t keep pace with CB and LI:

The Sales Team: Flat out job boards need to sell job postings, resume database memberships, branding opportunities, etc. CB and LI are modern day sales sweatshops! Monster barely recognizes I’m a customer and a fifteen-year customer. I know three levels of CB sales people on my account. I can’t tell you the last time I even got an email or call from Monster! LI is similar to CB. They constantly hawk me to buy.  In a game of three, the ones who can outsell the others will win.

At least quarterly I sit down live or on a call with my CB rep to take a look at metrics and how my team is utilizing their platform. Did I mention I never get a call from Monster? During these calls with CB I get numerous suggestions on how we can get better. Many times they’re trying to upsell me for more product, sometimes that works.

I get contacted from LI at least six times a year on various solution selling types of things for my business. I get invited to webinars constantly. The CRM machine for LI is strong. A little different than CB, which is more high touch, but LI’s selling automation is relentless.  As is Indeed’s. Indeed is another player in this game that has made all the job board players up their game. Their sales team took a page right out of CB’s selling book. I get at least a call a month from CB.

I got one call from Monster last year. It was to renew my contract. The call came from a person who I didn’t know and who didn’t know who I was or my business.

You can have the best brand (and I would argue of all the job boards Monster has the best brand), the best technology and the coolest stuffed animals to give away, but if you don’t sell, you’re going to get bought by a staffing firm for pennies on the dollar of what you really could be worth.

 

Is Your Average Cost-Per-Hire $4100? @SHRM

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SHRM Released their Human Capital Benchmark Report this past week and it’s loaded with a ton of metrics to compare your HR and TA operations against. The survey data comes from over 2,000 HR leaders and pros, and it’s pretty recent being collected earlier this year. Some interesting things I pulled from the report:

– Average cost of hire is $4100. This seemed high to me, but when you really analyze the cost of hire and add in the cost of your staff, benefits, technology, marketing, etc., it adds up quickly. Most organizations leave out the cost of staff when they figure the cost of hire and report lower costs. I like the number.

– 66% of organizations report to Not having a Succession Plan.  This number shocked me because I figured most organizations would just lie and say they have one, but we know the truth, most don’t! I tell HR Tech companies all the time, if you really want to make some money, figure out Succession, because normal HR leaders can’t.

– Only 55% of “Head’s of HR” report to the CEO or Owner. I would have thought this number would have been higher in the 85%-ish range. Looks like HR as a function still, has some proof-of-value to do when it comes to respect in reporting.

– $10,211 is the average HR-to-Expense per FTE. This is a great number to have when building budgets as a ballpark. Don’t get too crazy, though, the median is only $1,667. That means we have an industry within HR of the “Haves” and the “Have-Nots”, kind of like America!

– 61% of organizations offer Tuition Reimbursement. This just seems silly that it’s not in the 90’s. No one really uses this benefit, those that do stay for a lifetime, it’s a great selling tool because people think they’ll use it. It’s ridiculous only 61% of organizations have this, it almost costs you nothing long term.

– Average Time-to-Fill is 42 days! If you actually think this statistic is important you’re an idiot.  Taken out of context this metric is meaningless. 2000+ organizations, thousands of positions, hundreds of markets and industries. This number means nothing. Don’t pay attention to it and measure yourself against it.

– 66% of your employees participate in your 401K on average.  My goal is 100%.  It’s the one thing I know actually helps in retention, as those who participate in your retirement plan are less likely to leave your organization and have a longer tenure on average.

Click through the link above to get the report if you want all the detail, there’s a bunch more that I couldn’t fit in here and some other very interesting stuff.

One word of caution when measuring your organization and yourself against macro-data, realize you’re not ‘average’.  You are a unique and perfect butterfly. Just kidding, you’re actually less than average, statistically. Unless you’re lucky enough to work for a giant corporation with endless resources.

10 Reasons HR Thinks Employees Are Crazy

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I don’t know of one HR Pro I’ve ever met who didn’t say, behind closed doors, “My employees are Crazy!” It’s like school teachers when they go into that mysterious “Teachers Lounge”, once the door is closed and they are all in there with the other teachers. Didn’t you want to know what the heck they talked about!?!?

I can tell you because before I was in HR I was a teacher.  Guess what?  Teachers talk about the exact same things that HR Pros talk about.  How crazy the kids/employees are that we have to deal with all day!  The only difference is the physical age (certainly not mental age!).

So, I wanted to come up some of the reasons we think our employees are crazy to help out those crazy employees who want to come off less crazy at their next interview.  It can happen! I don’t think employees are crazy, all the time, just at certain times. The problem is HR Pros have to deal with all the employees, so there is a good chance a crazy one is going to come across your desk at least once a day. Thus, the reason HR Pros think all of their employees are Crazy is because we deal with crazy every day!

Here’s why HR Pros think Employees are Crazy:

1. Your Boss tells us about all of your weird anxieties.

2. Your co-workers, that hate you, tell us about all of your weird anxieties.

3. We know your medical history – mental and physical – sorry, it’s part of the gig.

4.  We find out every time you cry or lose it at work – every time – also part of the gig.

5. Your crazy-ass emails find their way to our inbox – thank your “work” friends for that.

6.  We spend too much time talking about you in succession planning meetings, uncovering all that is wrong with you.

7.  You rate yourself as “Great” on your self-assessments, and we know you are barely “Average”.

8.  I know more about your divorce then your divorce attorney.

9.  Your stories about your kids haunt me at night.

10.  I know everyone you’ve slept with in the office – or tried to sleep with – or want to sleep with.

It’s a function of the job that we see and hear the worst and the best of all of our employees.  Just like the school teacher who spends more time on a daily basis with your kids than you do as a parent,  that teacher is probably going to know some things about them that you are unwilling to accept.   HR Pros know some things about our employees, many of which they aren’t willing to accept, that’s human nature.

I’m only saying this so that you understand why we think you’re crazy – you are – you just can’t accept that you are! But, here’s the dirty little HR secret, we’re crazy as well!

I Need A Nurse, Stat!

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In the United States, we are facing a major nursing crisis, unlike anything we have ever seen. If you’re in the healthcare industry, you already know this and you’re living this nightmare each day.

Your recruiters are beyond frustrated in trying to fill openings, only to have more nurses leave every day. So, what can you do?

Join Cathy Henesey, ASHHRA Board member, and Director of Talent Acquisition & Workforce Planning at AMITA Health and myself for a free webinar hosted by CareerBuilder that will outline 10 things you should be doing to fill your nursing openings! The webinar is August 3rd at 1pm EST. 

What can you expect to hear:

  • Old school and new school ways to recruit great talent to your hospital or health system.
  • Metrics around what recruiting pools will be most effective for you to be fishing in.
  • What best practice organizations are doing right now to retain their healthcare talent so they don’t have to fill as many openings!
  • What technology is worth the investment when it comes to purchasing recruiting tech.

Register Here! 

It will be fun, fast-paced hour packed full of great tips and ideas to help you energize your recruiting shop!

HR, The DNC is showing you how not to communicate!

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We love to cover our ass in HR. It’s actually in The HR Rule Book, page 1, first paragraph:

“Like our brothers and sisters in the Real Estate game, we all have really only one rule to live by. They live by, “Location, location, location”. In HR we live by, “Document, document, document”. 

Documentation is great until it’s not!

The Washington Post reported this week that:

Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida was forced aside by the release of thousands of embarrassing emails among party officials that appeared to show co­ordinated efforts to help Clinton at the expense of her rivals in the Democratic primaries. That contradicted claims by the party and the Clinton campaign that the process was open and fair for her leading challenger, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

Let me start by saying this isn’t a political post. This could happen to any party, in any organization, to anyone who decides to communicate exclusively via email.

What can HR learn from the DNC email mess?

We (HR) need to start asking ourselves this one simple question: If what I’m writing right now in this email, was to be made public, could it get me in trouble or would it be embarrassing to myself, my organization or my boss?

If you answer, “Yes” to any of the above questions, stop typing, click delete, stand up, walk your butt over to whoever it was you were writing that message to! Or, pick up the phone and just have the conversation!

I think at least once a day I begin writing an email, stop, and click delete. I then either stand up or pick up the phone and have a direct conversation with the person I wanted to share this information with. There’s a time to document and there’s a time to have ‘plausible deniability’!

In HR we too often get caught up in wanting to have things in writing. You have to know there’s risk associated with getting something in writing. You now are in the loop of knowing what’s going on, and if you decide not to do anything, it’s the same as knowingly allowing something to happen or continue to happen.

The DNC would have been just fine if they would have run down to Starbucks and grabbed a cup of coffee together or picked up the phone and just talked some stuff out. But, no! Instead, let’s send thousands of emails back and forth that shows how stupid we can be!

I’m not telling you to cover up stuff. I’m telling you to not have stuff you have to cover up! Some of the best leaders I’ve worked for would send me this message in reply to some crazy email I sent them, “Call me.”

That’s really smart advice!

Is Smiling at a Black Person in an Interview a Racist Microagression?

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From the land of we’ve gone off the deep end of political correctness, check this out!

Do you suffer from “White Guy” smile? “When you pass a person of color on the street, do you give them the “white guy smile”? Congratulations, you’re racist! If you look at a person of color, you’re racist. If you don’t look at them, you’re racist. If you sort of look at them, then look away, you’re still racist. If you keep looking at them, well, damn you, you racist!”

So, I would love to tell you that this has never even crossed my mind, but I would be lying. Do I purposely smile at one person over another based on the color of their skin? No, that’s silly.

If I truly analyze myself I think I probably do the smile thing more for folks who I don’t think can speak English, and that’s probably even more racist! I think the smile would be more of an “I’m not sure how to start this conversation because I don’t know if you and are even going to be able to communicate” and if I smile at least you know I’m trying to have a friendly exchange.

Either way, I’m making a judgment based on how a person looks, and most likely the circumstance, this is probably going to be a problem.

All that being said, I’ve been in some way uncomfortable interviews with white hiring managers who stumbled over themselves with minority candidates and their white guy smiles! The candidates felt awkward. I felt awkward. It’s awful! They go so far overboard trying to act like they’re not racist that it’s more uncomfortable than if they were probably just racist!

How do you fix this?

Wow, that’s a loaded question! If you try to point out to the person they’re being racist, they’ll flip! If you let it go, they’ll continue to act like an idiot. Taped interview training sometimes help people see they are acting differently, just make sure you’re giving them many examples, not just one video of them interviewing a minority candidate!

I’ve seen this done with success when interviewing different genders as well. The classic example is supervisor male interviewing a female and treating them differently than when they interview another male. This training is highly effective if being used as a developmental exercise and not as a gotcha! Being taped in an interview is stressful, but it has a huge impact when you can sit and watch the differences. Not only will help catch and change biases, it also just flat out makes you a better interviewer!

The First Sign You Suck at Hiring!

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Hiring people to work for you directly is probably the single hardest thing you’ll ever have to do as a manager of people. To be fair, most people are average at hiring, some are flat out kill and probably 20% are awful at hiring.

The first sign you suck at hiring is your new hire turnover is an outlier in your organization, your market, or your industry.

So, what constitutes new hire turnover?

I find most organizations actually don’t measure their hiring managers on new hire turnover but use this to judge effectiveness on their talent acquisition team. That’s a complete joke! That is unless you’re allowing your TA team to make hiring decisions! New hire turn is a direct reflection of hiring decisions. Period.

When should you measure new hire turn?  Organizations are going to vary on this based on your normal turn cycles and level of the position. Most use 90 days as the cap for new hire turnover. That is safe for most organizations, but you might want to dig into your own numbers to find out what’s best for your own organization. I know orgs that use one year to measure new hire turn and orgs that use 30 days.

How do you help yourself if you suck at hiring?

1. Take yourself out of the process altogether.  Most hiring managers won’t do this because their pride won’t allow them. If you consistently have high new hire turn comparable to others, you might consider this, you just have bad internal filters that predispose you to select people who don’t fit your org or management style. Don’t take it personally. I suck at technical stuff. I shop that part of my job off to someone who’s better. You might be an exceptional manager of your business, but you suck at hiring. Shop that out to someone who’s better!

2. Add non-subjective components into your hiring process and follow them 100% of the time. Assessments are scientifically proven to tell you what they’re designed to tell you. If you follow what they’ll tell you, you’ll be much more likely to make consistent hires. If that assessment gives you better hires, then keep following it, or find an assessment that does give you that consistency.

3. Analyze your reasons for each misfire hire. Were there any commonalities in those? What I find is most poor hires stem from a hiring manager who gets stuck on one reason to hire, which has nothing to do with being successful in your environment. Example: “I want high energy people!” But then they work in an environment where they are stuck in a 6X8 foot cube all day. It’s like caging a wild animal! 

Numbers don’t lie. If you consistently bomb your new hire turnover metrics, it’s not the hires, it’s you! In the organizations where I’ve seen the best improvement in reducing new hire turnover, it was in organizations where new hire turnover metric results were solely the responsibility of each hiring manager, and nothing to do with talent acquisition.

It’s the 80/20 rule. 80% of most new hire turn is usually coming from around 20% of your hiring managers. Fix those issues and ‘magically’ your new hire turn improves.