Category Archives: Uncategorized

A 30-Minute Commute is all Most Employees Are Willing to Make

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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 to 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 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 who 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 has 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!

Do People Really Want to Work? (Rants from GenX!)

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On my way to work this morning, I saw seven businesses that had “Help Wanted” signs out front. The sign above is from a fast-food restaurant requesting you be nice to the few staff they have that are working their butts off to get you fat! Please be patient. Your fries, double cheeseburger, and shake will be with you shortly.

I was in Las Vegas last week for the SHRM Annual Conference. 25,000 HR professionals. It was giant. I spoke to hundreds of HR leaders and pros. Every. Single. One. of the HR professionals I met was having pain trying to hire and retain talent.

Do People Really Not Want To Work? 

1st – Of Course, People Don’t Want To Work!?! How stupid is this question!? (Wait, so let me get this straight, I don’t have to work? And I’ll get money? And I don’t have to pay rent? Okay, I’m not gonna work.)

2nd – Read #1.

3rd – If you give anyone a choice not to work but still get their bills paid, they will not work! This is what is currently taking place in this great country of ours. Some folks are making more not working than they were working. So, none of this is surprising!

The surprising part is politicians seem to be the only people alive in America who don’t understand that businesses can’t get people to come to work right now. Unemployment is still at historically low numbers, and it doesn’t look like that’s going to change anytime soon. Demographics are working against us, and we are losing people faster than we can replace them at a macro level.

We have a government, both sides, that can’t figure out better immigration policy, while we are surpassed by other rich countries who are now being super aggressive in the talent game. Both Dems and the GOP are lost when it comes to immigration. We need workers!

No, Really!? Do People Not Want To Work? 

Here’s my take:

People want to do things that make them feel valued. Things that make them feel satisfied. Where they have some freedom of choice, and at the end of the day, they feel safe, secure, and that they matter.

The vast majority of jobs from $10/hr to $20/hr can’t meet those basic needs. That doesn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t have those jobs. We should. It’s just complex to try to sell someone in that level of job they are truly valued.

If anyone of us was given the choice to not work and have our basic needs met, even for a short period of time (like what happened with the Stimulus package during Covid), most would take it and do things they would rather be doing. Some will help others and volunteer. Some will take time for themselves. Some will actually do nothing and just wait until the time comes around when they have to go back to work to meet their basic needs.

So, basically, if you are hurting for workers and you pay below $20/hr, you are going to be in a world of hurt for a long time. We don’t have enough humans to do no-skill, low-skill work in the U.S., and ChaptGPT isn’t doing those jobs, either!

What Can You Do To Get More Workers? 

First, do everything in your power to keep the workers you have. Be kind. Be helpful. Be understanding. If they are overworked, be empathetic and try to do what you can to help them and their quality of life. Do anything possible to give them some flexibility! Besides more money, it’s the one thing they want, and most people who make less than $20/hr never get the option of flexibility in their work. So, even small options are helpful.

Second, don’t give new employees stuff you won’t give your current employees. I see this constantly. Oh! Hey, come work for us, and we’ll give you a $500 signing bonus! But you won’t give your current employees a $500 retention or Hard Work bonus. Great talent attraction is about keeping your great talent first.

Third, stop thinking you are all that and a bag of chips! You can’t just throw up a Help Wanted sign and get workers. Be Better! Yep, that means you might actually have to put money into recruiting. Yes, hourly recruiting is as essential as salaried recruiting and, in many businesses, more important. But, I find most organizations that hire a lot of hourly workers are vastly under-resourced when it comes to hourly recruiting as compared to salary recruiting.

Fourth, it’s time to take some chances with all those biases you have. Hire folks who test positive for weed. Hire folks who went to prison. Hire folks who aren’t your “Norm.” It’s time to take some chances, which really aren’t chances, but being more inclusive in hiring, but that’s an entire another post.

Finally, vote differently. If one employer is having a problem hiring, most likely, that employer isn’t really that great to work for. If tens of thousands of employers are struggling to hire, something went wrong at a macro scale. In terms of our current situation, we know exactly what went wrong. Bad policy is causing some short/long-term pain for employers.

Economics will eventually take care of this problem. Employers will pay more, offer more, and change. This means we’ll all pay more for stuff we used to get cheaper. Some businesses will go under because you won’t agree that paying more is worth what they offer. This will cause workers to be unemployed. Making it easier for employers to hire at market wages. The law of supply and demand is undefeated.

The 3 Rules of Kissing Your Boss!

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On May 20, 2013, I published a silly little post on my blog called “The Rules About Hugging at Work”. The post might have taken me twenty minutes to write. It was just an idea I got, like thousands of others. I thought it was funny, so I wrote about it. To date, it’s been read over 1 Million times. Huff Post picked it up, it went viral on LinkedIn (I got over 1300 comments), and I’ve been interviewed and called “The World’s Foremost Expert on Workplace Hugging.”

Twenty minutes of writing, a throwaway idea.

Months later, I posted the exact same post on LinkedIn’s publishing platform. This was before everyone could publish (remember that). You had to be invited. I got a call from the LinkedIn chief editor offering me access. I didn’t know if it was really anything, so I just threw up old posts I had already written but added a few new pieces.

On the Hugging post, I added at the bottom my next post would be: The 3 Rules About Kissing Your Boss! as a joke. I never wrote it. Five years later, I got a message last week from someone who found the hugging post for the first time, asking how they could find the kissing post! I didn’t even know what they were talking about!

So, here’s the kissing post! 

It would be easy to dismiss the notion of kissing your boss as something that would never happen. When I say ‘never,’ I mean never. I mean, honestly, do any of us ever feel it would be appropriate to kiss your boss!?

This one is hard for me. I come from a family of huggers and kissers! My father is 80, and he still kisses me on the lips when I greet him or say goodbye. Some folks would find that super weird. Different cultures do different things.

My son was overseas this summer visiting friends in Belgium, and it was quite common for new people he met to give him that traditional kiss on the cheek, but he said those same people would not give you a hug or a handshake. This kiss-on-the-cheek greeting is very common in many parts of the world.

In America, you would probably get punched in the face if you tried kissing someone on the cheek you were meeting for the first time! I mean, look, if I don’t know you, I certainly don’t want your germs all over my face! Most Europeans I meet for business purposes in the States who come here often have gotten used to handshakes. Rarely do I see one of them do the cheek kiss greeting.

All of this is way different, though than kissing your boss! Kissing your boss would have to be a unique circumstance or special occasion. I’m guessing if you’re kissing your boss, one of a few things probably hasn’t happened in that relationship. You’ve probably become “very good” friends, some once-in-a-lifetime event is happening, or you’ve become romantically involved, in which case, not really your boss any longer! (Cue, Taylor Swift, they’re your “Lover”!)

So, if we can see a time in which you might kiss your boss, the excellent HR pro in me says we better put some pen to policy and make some rules!

Here are my three rules for kissing your boss:

1. No kissing on the lips. Kissing on the lips is a slippery slope you can’t put back in the bag! Wants that happens you might as well just get undressed. Sh*t just got real! We’re going to assume this kiss is not romantic in nature, completely as professional as kissing your boss can be professional!

2. Do not leave moisture on your boss’s cheek. Okay, somehow, we got down this rabbit hole to a point where I’m kissing my boss on his or her cheek. Let’s not make this super awkward by leaving a nice big wet spot on the side of their face. If you’re so excited to be kissing your boss’s cheek that you leave it wet, you should be checked into a mental ward.

3. Do not have bad breath. First impressions are critical, and even though your boss knows you, your boss doesn’t know the kissing you. Do not go in for that first boss kiss with bad breath! I love Ice Breakers Mints, and I have some close by almost always. Why? I can’t stand bad breath. Coffee breath is the worst, and I know many of you are major coffee drinkers! Guess what? Diet Mt Dew breath smells like a flower garden! Think about that next time go for a fill-up at the coffee station at work!

See? That’s how you do it. That’s how the World’s Foremost Expert in Workplace Hugging becomes the World’s Foremost Expert in Boss Kissing. You can’t be a one-trick pony in this world, folks. We all need to keep striving to reinvent ourselves. Watch out fall conference circuit! If you see Sackett coming, I might have just raised the game!

So, hit me in the comments. What are your rules for kissing your boss!?

HR 101: My Favorite (and Biggest) HR Mistake!

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I’ve made more mistakes in my HR career than I care to even remember. I could probably write a book!

It’s funny to think about your mistakes because I think invariably every person takes those mistakes and tries to turn them into some type of “learning.”

It’s a classic interview question – “So, Mr. Sackett, tell me about your biggest mistake in your career and what did you learn from it?” I have even asked it myself when interviewing others.

A nauseating response

Just once, I want someone to answer, “Well, besides coming to this lame interview, I’d have to say drinking my way through college, getting average grades, and having to take positions within HR, are probably my biggest ones. What I’ve learned is that all those high school kids in band and on the debate team really were smarter than me, and my ability to be a third-team all-conference point guard, in hindsight, probably didn’t get me into the career I was hoping for.”

But it never happens. No one is really honest about their mistakes because in making the most mistakes you do something stupid – something so stupid, you would rather not share it with anyone. So, we come up with answers like, “My biggest mistake was working too hard on a project with my last employer and not getting others involved, and I’ve learned while you can get the project done and on time by yourself, you really need to include everyone.”

That kind of answer makes me vomit. And somehow, as HR pros, we accept that answer and move on to the next question, almost like that question was just a test – a test to see if you were stupid enough to actually tell us the truth and brighten up our day!

But I’ve got a good one. I do have a favorite HR mistake, and two friends of mine recently made me think about it.

Yes, this is my favorite HR mistake

Here’s my all-time favorite HR mistake – Telling someone to go after a promotion and more money, leaving a position they truly enjoyed.

When I started my career right out of college, I gave myself 12 years to become a Vice President. Seemed like a logical goal at the time, but in hindsight, it seems obviously stupid now. It took me 16 years, and only after I realized it no longer mattered did I finally reach that level.

Two friends both recently had opportunities to leave organizations and positions they really liked, and I gave them both the same advice – you can’t even come close to measuring the value of truly liking the job you have. You just can’t, so answer me this one question: Do you love what you are doing, and who you are doing it for?

If the answer is “yes,” stay put. It’s that simple, and that was my learning.

I finally learned my lesson

I’ve left two positions in my life where I loved what I was doing and loved the organizations – both to take promotional opportunities with other companies. Both times I made the wrong decision. That is a tough mistake to make twice

I used to give out this advice to people — go ahead and leave because you’re going to have ten-plus jobs in your life, and you might as well move up as fast as you can. I don’t do that any longer; in fact, I now spend time trying to talk people out of taking new jobs – which I know is ironic since, at my core, I’m a recruiter!

I think we all hope that we learn over time from our mistakes. Once in a while, I actually do!

Should Lululemon Fire Employees For Attempting to Stop Theft?

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This week’s big news in HR is everyone’s favorite retailer, Lululemon, firing two employees who attempted to thwart some shoplifters at one of their stores in Georgia. The story is pretty straightforward, a group of folks runs into a Lulu store, grabs a bunch of stuff, and runs out. The two employees didn’t really do much. One yelled at the shoplifters to get out, and one followed them outside. Also, one took a video and called 911.

Apparently, this was enough to break a company policy and get them fired.

So, what’s the policy?

Basically, the Lulu policy on shoplifting is to let the shoplifters take whatever they want. As an employee, you do nothing to antagonize the thieves, so to ensure you do not put any employees or patrons of Lulu in harm’s way. You can call 911, but you’re best to wait until the shoplifters leave because, I mean, that might upset the thieves causing them to harm employees and/or patrons.

Is that clear?

It’s super easy to make fun of this. But, in reality, many companies have similar policies. Because, as it turns out, thieves are bad people willing to do bad things. But I will still make fun of this because this entire thing is just dumb.

Should these two Lulu employees be fired, is the real question?

My first thought:

Yes, they broke the policy, and both knew what the policy was. Lululemon claims they ensure every single employee knows this policy. How? Most likely, in onboarding and training, when they make you sign documents that say you learned it, but you might not have, but we sign stuff all the time because we want the job and a discount on those nice leggings.

If you don’t fire them, what you are really doing is telling every employee to try and stop shoplifters. This becomes a slippery slope as employees go to greater lengths to stop thieves, and all of a sudden you’ve got Lulu employees carrying guns and mace and stuff. Lulu vigilantes.

My next thought:

No! We all want “loyal” employees trying to do the right thing. These two employees didn’t try and tackle these thieves. They did what any normal human would do that saw this happen, and they reacted. They said get out. They tried to get some evidence. They called the police.

This is the problem with policies in most companies. They are black and white, but we live in a world of gray. Do these employees need some “re-training”? Yes. But Lulu says they have a zero-tolerance policy on this because it’s about employee and patron safety. That’s somewhat of a lie. This is what Lulu’s legal team is saying to the CEO. “If we get a patron or employee shot in a robbery, we’re going to have to pay millions to the victims and their families.”

I mean, it’s bad employment branding and product marketing to have dead people in stores. Even when they are wearing those amazing leggings. I mean, her butt looks great, but she’s way dead. That’s never going to be a slogan that makes it past legal.

Next next next thought:

If we live in a society that doesn’t respect the rule of law, chaos ensues.

I don’t want to live in a place where thieves have no fear of retribution. Where they can just run into any store and take what they want because they know nothing will happen to them. Do I want my employees handing out their own brand of justice? No. But am I going to fire them when they say, “Stop! Get Out! I’m calling the police!” Also, No!

If Lulu was Mom and Pop Hometown Retailer, would they have this policy? Most likely, no. Lulu gets away with this because they do not have a problem getting people to work for them because they are currently a sexy brand, and many people want that discount for their overpriced stuff.

Final thought:

The HR Guy in me knows this is an easy call, even when it’s one of those that is very hard to swallow. The policy is written and approved. It’s trained and signed off on. I might not agree with it, but I have agreed to take on this role in HR or Operations and ensure policies are followed. If I don’t agree with this policy to the extent I can not uphold it, I would need to quit.

There’s always more to these stories than the mass media finds out or will tell us. I’m sure the two employees actually knew the policy but also disagreed they should be fired, and they got the story out. The media loves beating up on a big, sexy brand like Lululemon. They also, apparently, love thieves just being able to go into stores and take anything they want without repercussions (Hello, San Francisco!).

Welcome to the show new HR graduates! You were taught in school most of HR will be black and white. What you’ll soon find is HR is almost never black and white.

Can America still lead the world in HR?

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I got the chance to travel to Singapore recently to be the closing keynote speaker at the largest HR Technology conference in Asia, HRM Asia Tech Festival. It was an amazing event, and I got to meet so many amazing global HR professionals. But this one question stuck with me long after I got back on the plane to return to the States!

Can America still lead the world in HR?

Now, some of my global HR friends might already be questioning, “Does America really lead the world in HR?” I’m not here to say if we do or not, but when I travel globally to speak at HR and Talent conferences, I’m constantly told, “Tim, we are excited to have you speak here, but you have to understand “X Region” is five years behind America in HR and Recruiting.”

It happens every single time!

What I actually find is the top 10% of HR shops around the world are fairly equal. If your organization has a major focus on HR and Talent, you are probably closer to best in class to your peers than you think. Where the truth lies in their statement is the bottom tends to be lower or there are just so many fewer organizations working to get to world-class HR practices overall as compared to America.

When it comes to America continuing to lead, it’s a legitimate question.

Now, I know a bunch of thought leaders in HR, mostly who are American, who love to rip on how awful American companies are at HR. It must be some weird American influencer power thing to believe that foreign audiences want to hear you make fun of America. What I find is this is true in Europe. Europeans love when you make fun of America, especially when you are American! But most of the other parts of the world, especially in Asia, don’t really react well to those making fun of the West. Much of Asia actually likes the West, so they are confused to hear a speaker rip on America.

The crazy part of my Singapore trip is the only time I heard anyone say negative things about America. It was coming from American Expats who now live abroad. So, my guess is these folks just didn’t really like America to begin with.

The question of whether America can lead in HR came from a local Singapore HR leader asking an American Expat speaker after his talk, where he spent the majority of it talking down America.

To his credit, he answered it rather well:

  1. The rest of the world has all the opportunity to now lead in HR. There is nothing holding them back from a technology or knowledge perspective. The world has gotten smaller.
  2. The rest of the world, through mass media, gets to see the worst of HR in America with examples like Uber, Twitter, etc. You see all the bad stories in the media and none of the great ones.
  3. The US has some unique cultural advantages that have kept it in the lead so far, including not having traditions, a willingness to move quickly and break stuff, and a willingness to be progressive.

Most of the world, especially in Asia, is steeped in tradition and saving face. HR Leaders in America can make a big mistake, and their career can survive it. That is not the same case in all places in the world. Thus, innovation and change do not happen quickly. What is the old adage, “You never get fired for buying IBM.”

So you have HR and Talent leaders who are not rewarded for making big changes and improvements. They are rewarded for not making mistakes. This makes it very hard to become a leader in that kind of environment. To lead, you must innovate and make change. If you innovate and make change, you will make some wrong turns. Wrong turns are career killers in other parts of the world.

America will lead in HR.

America will lead in HR for these simple facts. Much of the most innovative HR technology is still developed in America. Innovation in any function, including in HR, happens on the fringes. America has an amazing startup culture that pushes the boundaries and norms of what we should expect organizations to do. This is more conducive to developing leading HR practices and innovations.

It doesn’t mean that other regions around the world can’t create this, they are just pushing uphill on many fronts, and many of those are cultural, which are very hard to change. What I do think we’ll see are global HR and Talent teams who will work across regions to try and test things on a much more global front to see global HR change. It doesn’t have to be us vs. them. It can be all by working together.

One of my big takeaways from traveling around the world and speaking is every employer, and most countries face the exact same issues. How we go about solving them has been very different to this point, but that doesn’t mean it has to be as we move forward in the future.

An easy way to know if a candidate is batsh*t crazy!

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Have you ever hired a batshit crazy person? Yep, we all have. Wouldn’t it have been nice to know if that person was batshit crazy before you hired them? Again, 100% yes! But it’s hard, right? Candidates lie to us. They don’t give us their true selves.

Well, this is why you read this blog, my friends. I give you all the inside, pro recruiting tips and tricks you want but never knew you needed!

Okay, here’s how this will go down.

At some point, every organization will have this in a different part of the process, you will ask some form of this question. I recommend you do it early, but some organizations actually wait to do this in the background check.

The question is this: “Have you ever gone by a different first name, and/or do people in your life call you by a different first name?” Now, I’m not looking for something like my Mom calls me “Richard,” but my friends call me “Dick.” Those are the same thing. Mike and Michael, check those are the same. Also, I’m not asking for your median name and married name. We expect that to happen. Also, I’m talking about gender changes like I grew up Bruce, but now I’m Caitlin.

I’m talking about something like I grew up “Tim,” and I was “Tim” until I turned 16, and then I decided I wanted to be called “Trevor.”

Um, what?!

No sane person, not in witness protection, randomly decides to be called a different name unless there is some batshit crazy in the mix.

God bless my sister. I love her, and her name is Michelle. One day in high school, she came home and said, “Call me Chelsea now. All my friends call me “Chelsea.” And we immediately said nope. That’s not happening. Your momma named you Michelle, and everyone is going to call you Michelle. That’s what those who love you do. They put an immediate stop to anything that looks batshit crazy. By the way, to this day, she’s Michelle.

So, it’s an easy question to ask during an interview. “So, Tim, have you ever gone by a name other than Tim? Maybe something like Mark or Ted?” That response and answer you’re looking for is someone staring back at you, perplexed. Almost now, like they think you’re batshit crazy for even asking. That is the correct response! The correct answer is not, “Oh, yeah, for like a decade, my co-workers called me “Billy”!” If that happens, you immediately end the interview.

Look, I’m just out here spitting recruiting wisdom for free.

Some of it is going to hit home, some of it you’ll pass on. Pass on this gem at your own peril!

I identify as Age-fluid!

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I would love to take credit for coming up with “Age-fluid,” but I’m stealing it from Chip Conley, who I saw speak at Transform a few weeks back. Chip was talking about age diversity and how only 14% of the F500 actually measure age diversity and how this is becoming a major issue in corporate America.

Now, if you would talk to my wife, she would tell you I’ve identified as “age-fluid” most of my life. I’m 53, but my humor is mostly that of a 12-year-old boy! Also, I refuse to believe that I still can’t do most of the stuff I could 20 years ago. While my body feels like it’s 80 some days, I still think I hang on the court with folks half my age.

For hundreds of years, we’ve known of this phenomenon where you have a mental age and a physical age. I’ve already said my “mental” age is way lower than my physical age, but it’s important to truly understand the impact this has on the diversity of our organizations. Because we also see the opposite. I’ve met many young people who were wise beyond their years and seemed to have an “old soul.”

Most organizations and hiring managers are biased toward those of a higher age. I don’t think that is shocking to anyone. Old people are still the ones we can be biased against, and no one thinks it’s wrong. We make jokes in meetings about someone’s advanced age all the time, and no one thinks anything of it. But in reality, this is no difference from someone making an old person’s joke than if they were making a similar joke against someone’s gender or ethnicity.

I actually love the concept of being Age-fluid.

If someone in our society can be gender-fluid and decide from day to day which gender they believe they are, then I can decide what age I believe I am. I mean there are advantages to every age. Being young is cool, but it also sucks because you don’t know what you don’t know. Being old can suck physically, but usually you’re also more confident in where you’re at in life. You know who you are and you’ve come to grips with it. Being a child is magical, but you don’t understand that.

Today I feel like I’m 36.

Why 36?

Hmmm…well, at 36, you can still feel great physically, but you also have enough time on this rock to have a bit of learning. I won’t call it wisdom, but you’ve made enough mistakes to mostly know how not to make them again. Doesn’t mean you won’t, but you know the path you’re going down and how it will most likely end.

At 36, you aren’t looking at the end yet. You also aren’t looking back at the “good old days.” You feel like you still have more life ahead of you, than behind you, and you’re still young enough to truly feel like you haven’t written the script for your life yet. You still have promise, and you’ve made a bunch of progress on where you want to go.

Yeah, today, I’m 36. I’m also about 12 for a few seconds at at time, depending on what memes my other 12-year-old friends are sending me!

What age do you want to identify as today and why? Hit me in the comments.

TA Tech Vendors, You all are sleeping on #SHRMTalent!

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I just returned from the SHRM Talent Conference in Orlando, and while it’s growing and getting bigger, I was somewhat shocked at the lack of big-name TA Technology vendors in our space who weren’t there.

The argument from the vendor community has been, “Well, Tim, SHRM Talent doesn’t have enterprise buyers.” The thought is that SHRM’s audience is roughly 65% SMB HR professionals. This is when the vendor community shows their lack of math skills. Or really it’s their marketing teams, so I guess we should probably have lower expectations on math skills.

Let me give you some personal data from my 2023 SHRM Talent experience. I was told there were 2300 participants at SHRM. It definitely felt that way. I had two sessions there that were packed with TA professionals, and the rooms were big (500+).

My connection numbers from SHRM Talent 2023:

Total LinkedIn connections: 163 (90% TA-specific titles)

Total downloads of an eBook offer: 141

NPS score of my talks (this is just bragging): 87%

Title level of connections by percentage: Over 50% were “Manager” or above. Of those, over 25% were “Director” titles and above.

Of the 163 connections, how many came from organizations over 5,000 people? 68 and 26 were from organizations over 20,000. Including Toyota, Boeing, Siemens, Johnson and Johnson, Gannett, large universities, large health systems, banking and finance, state and fed gov’t, and large franchise organizations.

In one of my sessions, I asked how many folks were using Workday Recruit, and more than twenty hands went up. There were massive amounts of Greenhouse users, Paradox users, and HireVue users. None of those brands cared to show up. These are some of the biggest brands in our industry.

The SHRM Talent Attendees Are My People!

They are in the trenches, real talent acquisition professionals doing the work and using the tools. They are leaders of TA in organizations that are spending real money and buying technology. In my sessions, these professionals stood up and spoke about the tools they were using. The vast majority are desperate to find recruiting technology to buy, and they believe they have limited options because they aren’t being sold options.

I get asked weekly, by recruiting technology vendors, how they can get connected to our potential buyers. Every single time I tell them they have to get out and put themselves in front of them. It takes time to build the pipeline. People have to see your brand multiple times before they buy. They just don’t get an email and buy. I tell them to go to SHRM Talent, but most don’t listen.

The SHRM Talent Conference continues to grow. When I went a few years ago, there were 50 vendors at the expo. This year there were 100. Next year, it’ll be bigger. The reality is SHRM Talent is one of the only talent acquisition-specific conferences in the US that is really delivering content for TA leaders trying to get better. The sessions aren’t sold to vendors like most conferences in our space.

We (Talent Acquisition) need a great conference in our industry. SHRM is getting close. Having the great TA tech companies show up would definitely put it over the top. It’s a huge miss for the attendees who are there not to have access to all the great tech.

SHRM Talent attendees are the top 10% of talent acquisition professionals in the world. Why? Because they are few who made a conscious commitment to investing in their development. To be at the forefront of TA. To be interested in what’s next. To be open to new ideas and new technologies. You won’t change my mind on this. The vast majority of TA professionals in our industry just show up and do the job, and don’t look for further development. These folks did and I celebrate you.

Welcome to the age of average

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It seems like I keep having these Matrix-like experiences where I see the same thing repeatedly. The world has turned into a meme of an average housewife wearing their Lululemon crossbody fanny pack, Veja sneakers, or Ons (you pick), carrying your Stanley thermo cup, and driving your white SUV that looks like every other SUV.

We can make fun of this image because of how accurate it is. But really, we’ve all turned into this. My buddy KD makes fun of me for my propensity to buy shoes and clothes targeted to me on Instagram before he has the chance to buy them. IG knows if they target me, I’ll buy, and share with KD, who will cherry-pick the best buys after I try them!

If you look at sites like Pinterest, every kitchen looks the same. White cabinets, barn wood floors, and stainless steel appliances. The bedrooms all look the same. The bathrooms all look the same. Our houses, our vehicles, and our clothes all look the same. We have this desire to look like everyone else in every aspect of our lives. I’m no different.

This also extends to our professional lives.

I’ve been saying this for years, but employment branding professionals and agencies are basically just reproducing more of the same. There is very little differentiation from one employment brand to the next. Oh wait, you mean you are also an employer of choice?! How can that be!? You have great benefits, care about your employees, and are building an inclusive culture that values differences! As long as those differences match our differences, making us all the same.

I used to think the only unique employment brands were unicorn companies (Google, Tesla, etc.), but even those brands are all the same now.

We basically offer the same benefits, same work environment, same compensation, and same jobs. The only thing that actually might be unique is some micro-cultures hidden within the broader corporate culture, which is basically the same as almost every other culture. We offer average jobs, in average companies, for ordinary people. Yes, your people are ordinary because that’s exactly what you recruit. You definitely don’t recruit out-of-the-ordinary people. They would never make it through your hiring process!

By the way, I don’t have a problem with ordinary and average. We went through an entire generation who is desperate to think they’re unique butterflies, but by all of them being unique butterflies, it made them all average and ordinary. In the corporate world, we love the ordinary, and we hate outliers.

Generative AI will compound this issue, not make it better. ChatPGT and the like will push us further down the average and ordinary rabbit hole. Creatives will use AI to do their creative work, which will create the same thing repeatedly but faster. AI will learn what we like and produce more of it but in different colors and flavors. Original thought will become mass-produced thought.

How do we get out of the age of average?

Embrace the weirdos. Listen to the crazy ideas and actually try some of them. Tell your candidates and employees the truth. No, the real truth. Be willing to take some criticism over the stuff you tried that failed. As an employer, you are gaining nothing by being like everyone else. Be someone no one is. Some will hate you. Some will love you. Most won’t pay attention. Your goal as an employer isn’t to attract everyone. It’s only to attract the few folks who you truly want and who want you in return.

Does their crazy match your crazy?

We work so hard to try and hide our crazy. Then we are shocked when someone opts out of working for us and turns over. The best work cultures filter in and out with the same ferocity. If you welcome everyone into your work you’ll also be showing a lot of people the door at some point.