Category Archives: Wellness

Sackett’s Top 10 Fast Food foods of All Time

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So, I’m a big fan of sportswriter Bill Simmons. I love his writing and his podcast. About a year ago he started a website called The Ringer that basically develops sports and pop culture content, and last week they released a list of the Top 50 Fast Foods of all time.

On his pod, Simmon’s admits that the millennials who work for him screwed up the entire list (they had Chick-fil-a waffle fries as the number one choice! Those aren’t even the number one choice on the Chick-fil-a menu!), but it’s a fun list to look at any way to see where your favorites fall. To me, the list was flawed as it just measured all fast food foods in one category, which is really hard to do. S

So, I’m giving you my Top 10 Fast Foods based on the following categories: Main dish, Side dish, Breakfast, and Desert.

Sackett’s Top 10 Fast Food Main Dishes: 

1. Chick-fil-a Original Sandwich – I first ate a Chick-fil-a sandwich on spring break in Florida when I was nine years old and I thought it was the best thing I’ve tasted. Since I was in Michigan, I only got Chick-fil-a once a year when we would go to Florida for Spring Break. So, when I got older and traveled all over the country, I would go to great lengths to get Chick-fil-a and bring Chick-fil-a home to my family! These sandwiches are so good I actually look past their awful social stances! Until I’m done with the sandwich, then I go back to thinking how bad of a company they are.

2. Shack Burger from Shake Shack – The single best burger on the planet. Some could argue it’s not completely fast food, but when you order at a counter and wait to pick it up in minutes, it’s fast food. More expensive than most fast food, but another item I go out of my way to get! And stop on In-and-Out burger. You lose all credibility with me if you actually think In-and-Out is better than Shake Shack. Cheaper? Yes. Better? Not even close.

3. Spicy Chicken Sandwich from Wendy’s – The original spicy chicken sandwich and for my money the best. Chick-fil-a is close, but when the original is so good, you can’t bring yourself to order the spicy. Wendy’s sandwich has the right amount of heat and a juicy piece of chicken!

4. Joey Bag of Donuts burrito from Moe’s Southwest Grill. Qdoba’s burrito runs a close second to Moe’s. Chipotle isn’t even close. Look, when I get a burrito that’s as big as my head, I don’t need to hear your organic, free range bull shit. I know I’m eating something that will likely kill me, just let me enjoy it! Moe’s makes a great burrito and you always feel welcome!

5. Double Cheese Burger from McDonald’s. The double cheese from McDonald’s is the grease-soaked burger type item that just tastes good, even though it shouldn’t.  Also, you can’t just eat one, it’s a two order minimum, they should just come that way. I’m not proud, but I’ve been known to order more than two. It’s a great 2 am meal.

6. Arby’s Roast Turkey Ranch & Bacon Sandwich. First, you actually feel healthy ordering this as compared to most fast food items, But throw on a ton of turkey, bacon, and ranch and it’s no longer a healthy choice, but it sure tastes good! This replaces all subs on my list. Sure there are great subs shops, but they’re all local. National sub shops are usually awful.

7. Shredded Chicken Burrito from Taco Bell. This is my go-to road food. If I’m in the car and in a hurry, this Taco Bell burrito is a winner in my book. Look, I don’t trust Taco Bell beef, but for some reason, I trust their chicken, and I can eat a few of these.

8. Little Ceasars Hot & Ready $5 Pepperoni Pizza. Not fast food? It might be the fastest food on the planet! I walk in. Ask for a hot and ready and I’m out in a minute! Not only is it not an awful pizza, it might be the best value of all fast food, ever! Sure you can find way better pizza, but for $5 bucks you can’t beat this pizza.

9. Philly Cheesesteak from Penn Station. Regional chain alert. I don’t consider a Cheesesteak a sub, and Penn Station has a great Cheesesteak. Sure, you can find way better local joints, but not fast food cheesesteak places in the midwest like this!

10. Chicken Club Toaster Sandwich from Sonic. Okay, I’m a chicken sandwich fan and I like Texas Toast, Sonic gives me both on this sandwich. It’s my go-to sandwich at Sonic.

 

Sackett’s Top 10 Fast Food Side Dishes: 

1. Potato Ole’s from Taco John’s – I’m a sucker for tater tots and these are the small ones, deep fried with a blend of spices that you can dip in nacho cheese. Stop it! I want some right now!

2. McDonald’s Fries – I think 99% of American’s grew up on these and they’re still a favorite. Consistently great for about ten minutes. Once they get cold they taste like something awful and they can never be warmed up. This leads to eating the fries first, usually before you even get the bag home.

3. Sonic Tater Tots – Like I said, I like tater tots. It’s my list, not yours. Dip them in ranch and welcome to the Midwest of awesome!

4. Kentucky Fried Chicken Mashed Potatoes – I don’t even think these are real potatoes but you put that brown gravy on them and I can eat way too many.

5. Qdoba Queso and Chips. Great spicy white queso and fresh chips, if they only had a margarita in a to-go cup this would be perfect.

6. Long John Silver’s Hush Puppies. What the hell is even in a hush puppy? I don’t know and I don’t care because they’re so good!

7. Crab Rangoon’s at any Chinese takeout place. Usually, this is another no-wait item in the Chinese takeout world, especially those takeout places that run the hot buffet counter all day long.

8. Waffle fries from Chick fil a. You don’t find waffle fries in many places and they do these pretty good. The one thing that holds this back is when you get that one waffle fry that isn’t really a waffle fry but more of a half of potato that didn’t get fully waffled!

9. Onion Rings at Burger King. These aren’t great onion rings overall on the onion ring scale, but these are fast and good. The problem is you never get enough of these in an order, but you do get usually get a bonus fry or two.

10. Crinkle Fries at Culvers – close second place are the Shake Shack crinkle fries. The key to a great crinkle fry is making sure you get the done enough. The worst tasting fry is a half done crinkle fry. Culver’s does these really well!

 

Sackett’s Top 10 Fast Food Breakfast items: 

1. Steak Breakfast Crunchwrap from Taco Bell – So, let me get this straight you put a big hash brown, eggs, steak, and cheese inside a flour tortilla shell and grill it? Yes, please!

2. Krispy Kreme Donuts – Okay Krispy Kreme’s aren’t even my favorite donuts, but donuts had to be high on the list and we all have our favorite local places! To be fair, a hot box of Krispy Kreme’s is like eating Lay’s Potato Chips, you can’t just eat one! My favorites in order: Quality Dairy (Michigan), Glazed and Infused (Chicago), and LaMar’s (Midwest, KC).

3. Chick-fil-a Chicken Biscuit – It’s the Chick-fil-a sandwich on a biscuit instead of a bun. What’s not to love?!

4. Sausage, Egg, and Cheese McGriddle’s from McDonald’s – Okay, sausage, egg, and cheese between two warm griddle cakes that taste like maple syrup. My diabetes gets excited just thinking about it!

5. French Toast Sticks from Burger King – Perfect fast food breakfast. You don’t have time for a fork and knife. Just let me dip these deep fried pieces of bread into some syrup.

6. Bacon, Egg, and Cheese Croissan’wich from Burger King – Back to back BK items on the countdown. This is a solid breakfast sandwich and the flaky croissant pushes it over the top.

7. Cinnabon Original Classic Role – My teeth hurt just writing this, but OMG these are too good to be real! I actually feel guilty ordering one of these and eating it in front of people.

8. Steak, egg and cheese Subway Flatbread – Under-rated as a breakfast stop. Their sandwiches are awful, but the breakfast is actually pretty good and you can make it semi-healthy is you decide that’s for you.

9. Grilled Breakfast Burrito at Taco Bell – Taco Bell is killing it at breakfast as compared to most fast food places, I could probably list most of their items on this list and feel good about it.

10. McDonald’s Hash Browns – It doesn’t seem like a breakfast item by itself, but many folks I know just order these. What’s not better for breakfast than fried potato cakes!?

 

Sackett’s Top 10 Fast Food Dessert Items:

1. The Chocolate Chunk Cookie from Chick-fil-a – I have this number one on my list and I think it’s underrated! Every time I give someone one of these cookies they can’t believe how great it is and they can’t believe I got it from a fast food place. I could buy these in bulk, put them on a plate in my house and pass them off as homemade.

2. Blizzard from Dairy Queen – The most copied fast food desert on the planet, almost everyone now has their version of the original, but it started at Dairy Queen. Vanilla ice cream and your choice of mix-ins, it’s one of the perfect summer treats.

3. The Chocolate Frosty from Wendy’s – Another original which is basically an extra thick chocolate shake or just a cup of soft serve chocolate ice cream, it doesn’t really matter because this is the perfect fry dipper!

4. Strawberry Slush from Sonic – Okay, you could call it a drink, but it’s a dessert. Most people will say this isn’t event the best dessert at Sonic as their shakes and malts are good as well. Plus, if you don’t like Strawberry, go ahead and pick your flavor, there are like twenty-five to choose from.

5. Apple Pie from McDonald’s – It might have been the first fast food dessert ever created, so it has to make the list. I mean, warm apple pie you can eat with one hand while driving! That can’t be beat.

6. Cookies from Subway – You can’t miss with Subway cookies. My oldest son likes these so much we had them at his graduation open house. What makes them good? Usually, they’re half-baked, making them super soft and you can’t just eat one.

7. Cinnabon Delights from Taco Bell – These double as a breakfast food and a treat. Basically, they’re a traditional Cinnabon ball filled with Cinnabon icing, plus they come warm! So sweet your teeth will hurt.

8. Cheesecake from Fazoli’s – Plain or with strawberry topping, the Fazoli cheesecake is a great compliment to your Italian fast food meal.

9. Frozen Custard from Culver’s – Super creamy, thick frozen custard tastes so much better than your normal soft serve ice cream. Plus, they always have multiple flavors and toppings, plus the flavor of the month. It’s hard going to Culver’s and not getting custard!

10. Rootbeer float from A&W or In and Out – It’s a throwback to when America was great. I remember my grandparents making root beer floats for us as kids on a Saturday night and everyone, including the adults wanted one.

Hit me in the comments if I missed one of your favorites on the lists above!

I’m not an “Us” or a “Them”

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Politics are ruining my friendships. Look, I don’t really want to know what you care about, because most of us care about crazy shit that others don’t understand, or can’t understand. You getting me to understand your crazy, probably isn’t a good thing!

I have true friends who are pro-life. I love these friends. I don’t understand how they can’t understand my pro-choice stance, but they don’t. They can’t understand how I can be a baby killer. I’m not, but we all have our positions. We’ve been able to have a great friendship in spite of this one difference.

Maybe there should be a difference of belief scoreboard. Only having one difference of belief is fine, we can still be close friends, even two or three. Once you get to four, you begin to be a person I don’t want to hang with. Once you get to six, maybe you turn into a horrible person I would rather see dead. I’m not quite sure at the math, but I’m sure we could come up with a system.

I want to be friends with all kinds of people, but recently it seems like all kinds of people don’t want to be friends with me because I don’t believe in their crazy, to the exact specifications they want me to believe.  I see their points. I respect their points. But, I’m not flying their flag. So, apparently, that makes me part of the evil empire.

I like puppies. I fly that flag, for sure! I love babies. All babies. White, brown, yellow, any color baby is alright with me. I’m definitely pro puppy and pro baby. I like gin and tonics. Marry whomever you please, I support that. Single moms, I was raised by one, that’s the toughest gig on the planet. I’m not a church-goer, but I’m not an Athiest. I like the Spartans, probably too much. I like money. I hate giving money to people who don’t deserve it or appreciate it. I’m definitely, pro-money. I like helping people. I try and do that as much as I can.

I’m not a ‘them’. I’m also not an ‘us’. I’m more of a ‘we’.

Both the Democrats and Republicans are extremely happy we are all going ‘us’ and ‘them’. By doing this we keep both parties in power. The last thing they want is that we become a ‘we’. The establishment has ‘us’ exactly where they like to have us. Against each other. That gives them the most power. If we find a middle ‘we’, you’ll really see some shit happen!

The reality is, our current government is fine with the other party winning. All that does is give their own party more power for the next four years. Until they come back into power. Then the cycle repeats. Don’t you think if one side had it ‘right’, I mean really ‘right’, they would keep winning each year? But neither do. So, we yo-yo back and forth. Feeling passion one cycle, beat down the next, on top again the next.

Morals matter, well about once every four years, then we go back to forgetting morals matter. Walking by homeless like they’re not there. Laughing a comics tell crude jokes but she’s a woman so it’s okay to say those things. Letting our government drop tens of thousands of drone-bombs on people different from us, killing anyone in our way of a $1.99 gallon of gas.

I know this sounds naive, but I just want my friends back. I want to be able to have a conversation that isn’t filled with hatred and absolutes. I didn’t vote for him because he’s a bad person. I didn’t vote for her because she was an awful liar. I voted for someone I thought was different than the establishment because I truly want a change that benefits us all.

I’m stuck in the middle right now wanting to be a “we”, but surrounded by “us’s” and “them’s”.

 

 

The One Conference HR Pros Need to Go to in 2017 #WorkHuman

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So, I’ve been on the record that my favorite conference to attend is the HR Technology Conference. It’s my favorite because I geek out on HR and TA Tech and I’ll send three days on the expo floor demoing every product under the sun. That’s me. That’s not most HR pros.

I’ve actually had HR pros read my stuff and go to HR Tech and then come back to me and said they weren’t too happy with my recommendation. When I asked them why they went, it was because it was my favorite conference. To which I needed to ask, but are you even into HR Tech or have a need to buy? It was always no!

The one conference that I really like and I’ve yet to find someone who didn’t get a ton out of it, has been Work Human. Work Human is really unlike any HR conference you’ve gone to. It’s as much about making you a better person, as it’s about making you or your organization better at HR. You leave feeling positive, refreshed, ready to go back and make things better. Let’s not kid ourselves, that’s really hard to do for a conference!

At the end of May in 2017, I’ll be heading back to Work Human for my third straight year. The content stream is unique. Don’t think you’ll be sitting through non-stop hour and fifteen-minute sessions, Work Human is not that! You’ll find twenty-minute sessions, hour sessions, A list keynotes, time to meditate if you’re into that, or time to have a cupcake, if you’re into that (I was way more into the cupcakes!).

The Work Human folks are actually offering my readers a $100 discount off the early-bird pricing of $895, if you register before the end of 2016 (December 31st). All you have to do is visit the Registration page and put in the code – WH17INF-TSA. 

For what you’ll get for $795 there isn’t a better conference value on the planet for HR! So, here you go, this is how to use up that last little bit of budget money you have left and before finance will take away unless you use it. Plus, we can sit down and share cupcakes!

Check out the conference site and I hope to see you in Phoenix in 2017!

T3 – Fitbit Group Health – @Fitbit

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This week on T3 I take a look at wearable technology Fitbit, but not from the actual wearable tech perspective, but from their health wellness tech solution. Fitbit Group Health was developed specifically to support organizations that have decided to use the power of wearable tech to help their employees reach their wellness goals.

I was drawn to this tech because seemingly everyone knows the brand Fitbit. As an experienced HR pro, I’ve learned that the path of least resistance is critical when getting employee adoption of any HR program! Meaning, if my employees are already Fitbit fans, why would I fight the momentum!?

Fitbit has been around for a while now and because of this they’ve been able to do some long term studies with large organizations using their wearable tech and run side by side control groups to find out what impact this wearable tech has on wellness from a cost perspective, and it’s quite stunning!

Fitbit Group Health recently released a study that shows year over year results can reduce your overall healthcare spend by almost 25%! The study compared one group of employees with the Dayton Transit Authority (bus drivers who sit almost all day) with a control group of the same employees not wearing the Fitbit tech. For one year they followed this group and the group wearing the Fitbit incurred 24.5% less per person average overall healthcare cost as compared to the control group.

Fitbit’s own data amongst all their corporate users is showing similar great reductions across 2.6 million users in 70 of the Fortune 500. Wearing the tech leads to more active lifestyles and better health outcomes. Makes sense, right? Get your employees moving more and crazy enough they get healthier.

What I really like about Fitbit Group Health:

  • Employees already like Fitbit and are wearing Fitbit. This makes is super easy to gain adoption.
  • Fitbit Group Health makes it easy for you as an employer to supplement the cost of buying individual Fitbits and setting up a site just for your organization for employees to purchase the technology.
  • The Fitbit Group Health technology gives you a dashboard to track employee usage, set up contests and message individuals and groups of employees. The metrics you receive in HR allows you to track your own results and tie it back to cost savings.
  • It’s proven outcomes and reduction of cost over many industries, blue collar and white collar, fully supplemented, partial supplemented and non-supplemented. It doesn’t matter, it works!
  • It’s scalable and can easily be tested in an organization at the department level, location, etc.

What you’ll find is you already have Fitbit fans in your organization and you’ll easily be able to make some new fans, but you’ll also be able to drive a culture of wellness with employees supporting each other.

We all know the struggle of getting high adoption of wellness in our organizations. I think Fitbit Group Health is providing a great model of getting your employees moving and supporting each other. The fact is, that small thing, can give every organization huge positive results!

T3 – Talent Tech Tuesday – is a weekly series here at The Project to educate and inform everyone who stops by on a daily/weekly basis on some great HR, recruiting, and sourcing technologies that are on the market.  None of the companies who I highlight are paying me for this promotion.  There are so many really cool things going on in the tech space and I wanted to educate myself and share what I find.  If you want to be on T3 – send me a note.

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!

 

Pokemon Go Your Employees To Better Health

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I hate posts that just comment on the hottest thing going on in the world. Here’s the thing, I’m the last guy you want to hear some commentary on Black Lives Matter! So, you get Pokemon Go commentary instead!

Okay, here’s my take on Black Lives Matter –

  • If you say “All Lives Matter” you’re an ignorant asshole.
  • Of course “all” lives matter, but “all” lives are not getting killed for basic traffic violations.
  • I drove my car today. I was even speeding. At no point was I concerned a cop was going to pull me over and kill me for speeding, or anything else! I’m a middle-class white dude. That, by itself, is like a get out of jail free card for life!
  • Black Lives Matter because right now we need Black Lives to Matter. Let’s hope at some point we can add the Black Lives to the All Lives, but right now we can’t yet.
  • If you say Blue Lives matter, I get it. My brother is a cop. Cops get paid for shit. Have awful training, and are asked to make split second decisions in tense moments. They put their life on the line to protect civilians every day. Mistakes in that environment will be made, often. That’s a problem. When shots are fired, I hope and pray a cop will be there to protect me. Just like many were in Dallas.

Okay, now onto Pokemon Go!

  • My 13 year old walked around in our neighborhood more in the past 4 days then he did in the past 4 years!
  • Pokemon Go is f’ing brilliant. It’s the best thing to happen to wellness since, well, anything!
  • You should support your unhealthy employees need to want to go and find Pokemon! It will be the most successful thing you’ll ever do in employee wellness.
  • Also, on a side Recruiting note, did you realize there are nerd-herds out trying to catch Pokemon! Talk about great pools of IT talent just wondering around your city! Get on this! Pokemon Go is the best thing to happen to IT recruiting since Snap Chat! (he said completely laughing to himself knowing someone will truly believe this!)

Honestly, I love Pokemon Go. I saw so many teens out in my city walking and riding bikes the past few days!  Interacting together, while completely looking down at their phones.

It reminded me of when I was a kid and my parents would lock me out of the house until the street lights came on. Well, almost.

I even say white kids and black kids walking together, almost hand in hand, trying to find Pikachu! Dr. King would have had a tear in his eye, that a Japanese multi-national company developed a smartphone app that would finally bring us together under a common cause!

 

T3 – Whil (@WeAreWhil)

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This week on T3 I review the hippy-dippy app called Whil! Okay, Whil really is a mobile app that delivers mindfulness for the modern age. It’s basically a platform of mindfulness for professionals, built by professionals in the mindfulness space.  Whil is specifically designed to corporate wellness, to reduce stress and related illnesses.

Let’s face it, most of us are under way too much stress. As HR pros our executives have thrown this on our backs as well, reduce the stress of all of our employees so they are better performers, more productive and, oh yeah, don’t make it cost too much! I’m very interested in mindfulness, heck, I’m interested in anything that will give me an edge, my problem has been finding the time. Whil seems like a great way to get me started and keep me going.

Do you feel me!?

Whil has a Netflix type UX that allows you to search their 1250+ sessions based on things like “what’s your issue”? Is it stress relief? Bam, here are hundreds of mindfulness exercises, yoga exercises, etc. that can help. You’re low on confidence today. Okay, here are options specifically for you.

5 Things I like about Whil:

1. They have personal dashboards for every employee so they can track their own progress, start from where they left off last, know how long they been doing something, etc. All employees are auto-enrolled by their work email, which allows HR to control access for those who are no longer an employee.

2. HR has their own dashboard which gives them great stats like who’s using Whil the most, which Whil programs are the top ones for their organization, and demographics of your employees who are utilizing the system. The crazy part about stress is we (HR) usually have no idea who is actually under stress, so Whil gives us some better insight to the overall stress health of the organization. The dashboard also allows HR to give out personal rewards to help with user adoption if you choose.

3. Whil has programs for mindfulness, yoga, emotional intelligence, compassionate leadership, etc. Many of the soft skills we need our new leaders to have as well, so it doubles as a great leadership development tool as well, or employee development for hiring managers to recommend to their own staff.

4. Wearable integration! For some organizations, this is big, as many of us have employees who have picked up on the wearable craze and this works right along side that technology as well.

5. All of the sessions are designed to be workplace friendly. 1-10 minute sessions which can be done at their workstation, or a quiet room, exercise room, out on the lawn, you name it!

Mindfulness technology might not be for every employer. The research behind the practices show great results, so it can’t be ignored by HR professionals and leaders. Whil is definitely worth a look if your organization has interest in adding this to your wellness program.

T3 – Talent Tech Tuesday – is a weekly series here at The Project to educate and inform everyone who stops by on a daily/weekly basis on some great recruiting and sourcing technologies that are on the market.  None of the companies who I highlight are paying me for this promotion.  There are so many really cool things going on in the tech space and I wanted to educate myself and share what I find.  If you want to be on T3 – send me a note.

Your Sunsets Are Numbered!

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I had a couple of things happen to me this past week. First, I traveled to the Cayman Islands for an HR conference and some vacation.

I’m in love with the Cayman Islands. Great people, the most beautiful water you’ll ever see and mind changing sunsets.  I swam with Stingrays and Sea Turtles. I saved my wife’s life from dragged out to sea. I broke bread, several times, with friends, old and new. I was a pretty damn good trip!

I did Disrupt HR Cayman (My presentation starts at 18:18 on the video link) and talked about how Failure is the New Black, but shouldn’t be. Believing failure is okay is the worst snake oil being sold by leadership gurus today. Don’t believe the hype!

The sunset thing got me thinking. The other thing that happened is I had a friend unexpectedly pass away this past week as well.

So, I’m watching these great sunsets and thinking about my friend and understanding a little about you can’t take all of these sunsets for granted. But we do.

We take for granted that we will definitely see another sunset.  So, what does this all mean?

I could tell you the same crap you hear from everyone that talks about this: make sure you tell people you love them, do what you wish now, etc., etc., etc. But I won’t, because you won’t listen. Instead, do this:

  1. Drink expensive alcohol. You’ll drink less of it, and enjoy it more.
  2. Wear really good shoes. They’ll feel better, look better and last longer.
  3. Eat food that you like. I’m not a foodie. Sometimes people eat crap trying to impress others, but it quite honestly tastes awful. You’re not impressing anyone. Shake Shack tastes great. I’m that kind of foodie – burger and fries foodie.
  4. Hang with people who want to hang with you. We spend way too much time in life hanging with assholes.
  5. Go to the other side of the Island. There’s beauty everywhere, and yet we tend to go where we know.  Some of the greatest moments in my life happen when I go to where I know nothing.

How’s that for life-changing advice that you didn’t ask for?

Now get back to work and make some money!

The Greatest Retirement Benefits You Can Give Your Employees

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My Dad retired this past year. I’m already ‘leveraging’ him for some time. He has so much of it now! It’s like he won the time lotto and he’s throwing it around because he’s got so much of it. “Hey Dad, can I borrow a couple of hours!? It’s a busy week! I need you to pick up the kids!”

I read this article, The Huge Retirement Benefit You Probably Aren’t Expecting recently:

America is reaching a tipping point. Adults in the busiest phase of life, juggling kids and careers, number about 40 million, which is roughly equal to those near and in retirement, who typically have time on their hands. But the number of adults pressed for time is projected to grow slowly, reaching 49 million by 2050. By contrast, the number of retirees with plenty of free time will explode to 88 million, as more and more boomers retire.

When you add it all up, retirees will have 2.5 trillion hours of leisure time to fill over the next 20 years. This free time will redefine their habits and priorities—even their identities. And yet almost no one is planning for this sweeping change, according to a report from Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Age Wave.

Time is going to be the new currency of future generations. It’s like lake front property, there’s only so much. Unless you live in Dubai and have billions, then I guess you can make new lake front property!

The crazy thing is, organizations aren’t really putting that much effort into figuring this whole thing out. We’re treating it like we’ve treated retirement for decades. “Well, Bill’s retiring, let’s throw him a party, buy him a walker with a horn, and give his work to the new kid.” We aren’t thinking in a new context of what do these ‘new’ folks who are retiring really want?

What I’ve learned from Dad is we in HR are missing some things. Here are some ideas of Retirement Benefits you could offer, but you haven’t even begun to think in this new way of time:

1. Part-time, flexible Mentorships – Some people can’t wait to stop working for your organization. Many feel they’re being ‘nicely’ pushed out, or society makes them feel like ‘it’s time’ to leave. The reality, so many of your retiring employees would love to keep in touch. Help out the new kids. Lead mentor groups on how to deal with customer issues, leadership dilemmas, customer/client feedback, etc. And most would do it for free! They would volunteer their time!

2. Corporate Community Volunteer Programs – Remember, these super valuable, experienced, loyal former employees who love your brand, have a couple trillion (with a T) hours on their hands! Can you imagine how much good will you could leverage in the community if you activated your retirees as volunteers with some direction and leadership!?  It could transform your corporate presence within the markets you serve. BTW – hospitals do a great job at this! There is no reason you shouldn’t be able to do this in your organization as well.

3. C-Suite Bullship Detectors – Your executives don’t always know what’s really going on because they have a bunch of VPs kissing their ass telling them what they think they want to hear. Retirees are a great mechanism to tell your executives what is actually going on, versus what they’re being told. They’re like highly paid consultants, without the highly paid part!  We all need someone without a vested interest to tell us like it is, even when it stings a little. Your retirees would love to do this. Works really well for newer retirees who are still close to the business. Not so well once they get a ways out. You will be shocked at the bond your executives will build with these folks!

Something to think about. How are your new retirement benefits helping your former employees spend and invest their most precious commodity? Time.

 

Maternity/Paternity Plans in 2016 #HRTF16

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Hey, gang! I’m at HR Tech Fest in Washington D.C. and so far there has been some exceptional content and keynote sessions!

One of those keynotes was given by Jim O’Gorman who is the SVP of Talent and Organization at Hulu. Jim spoke about the organizational evolution of Hulu going from startup to becoming a teenager. What I loved about the entire presentation was he works for a big brand, but he shared real world HR issues they have faced and how the solved them.

You don’t always get this from major brands. You usually get this very washed, clean view of how great everything is and perfect they are, and you leave really learning nothing. Jim gave solid ideas and examples of stuff any of us could do in our own shops!

One great idea he had was sharing their Maternity and Paternity programs that Hulu has recently put in place, and the challenges and results. Ironically, Dawn Burke and I just had this same conversation about her own HR shop and the challenges they have had with instituting a modern maternity program.

What does this have anything to do with an HR Technology conference!?

That’s the cool part. Jim, and Hulu, used their HR analytics and technology to prove that developing a new Maternity/Paternity program would increase engagement, loyalty and retention. The money it was going to cost, would come back in spades by the increase in these other metrics.

Sure it was the “right” thing to do, but it also have to make financial sense to the organization.

The Hulu program gives the primary caregiver 20 weeks of pay (12 weeks in a row – think the traditional FMLA time that is required but with pay), and 8 weeks of pay that can be used as transition time.  These 8 weeks is to be used to slowly transition those primary caregivers back into their work life.

Primary caregiver is defined as birth mother, same-sex parent who is going to primary caregiver or father if the father is going to be the primary caregiver.

On top of this, the secondary caregiver in Hulu’s program, traditionally the father, also gets 8 weeks of paid leave to use as they need to support the primary caregiver. That means a secondary caregiver can decide when this time needs to be used, within the first year of life of the child.

Hulu’s philosophy was we can’t build just one maternity/paternity program because everyone’s situation is different. It has to be flexible for all of our arrangements. Each family is different and unique, and if truly want this program to deliver our desired outcomes (increased retention, high engagement, and loyalty) we need to develop a program that is customizable for each person.

“Customizable”!? HR? Benefits? Policies?  Wait, that sounds different!

Sounds pretty cool to me. Sounds like the future of HR to me.

Combine great ideas with what our employees actually want and need with technology and organizations can make great things happen!

Check out HR Tech Fest – it’s their first year in the U.S., and they put on a really great conference. No detail was forgotten, the content was world-class and the attendees were highly engaged! I’ll be back!