Why Did Amazon Decide on Having 3 Corporate Headquarters?

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So, the biggest news of the week is Amazon finally made a decision on where they were going to build HQ2 and come to find out instead of just one location, Amazon is splitting the job lottery into two prizes and both Washington D.C. and New York will get an Amazon Headquarters. Okay, it’s probably really about 4 Headquarters since they’re really focusing a ton of the supply chain talent in Nashville, but who’s counting!?

I never really thought Washington D.C. or New York City had a chance because I was thinking about stuff like the ability to actually move around! Turns out Amazon’s real decision point came around brain power. Now, I know what you’re thinking! There are absolutely no brains in Washington D.C.! Hello, is this mic on!? Also, have you been the urine-scented streets of New York!? Joking!

If you look at the U.S. and did a heat map around higher education institutions you would find a gigantic section of the Eastern seaboard is shaded a bright red! From Boston to New York to Philadelphia to Washington D.C. you can’t find a more concentrated area of higher education in the world! Amazon’s newest HQ2 and HQ3 will be strategically located right amongst those areas!

The largest employers in the U.S. look like this:

Walmart is stupid big, but almost all of their employees are onsite at stores.  Accenture is huge, but again their employees work in every medium to large city in the country, not a one big headquarters. FedEx is basically the US mail service. Go down the list and you’ll most of the largest employers are not headquartered centric, but location-centric.

Amazon is the lone giant employer who has most of its employees in office buildings. Knowing they were going to have to hire 50,000+ employees, there was really no one location in the U.S. that could have handled that need for talent in such a short time. Washington D.C. and New York are probably two of the places that can handle 25,000 new jobs, each, without crippling every other employer in the market. And, this will still cause a giant disruption in those cities as people will be moving around like crazy.

An additional 5,000 white collar jobs in Nashville will be an incredible amount for that market, especially in the key skills they’re looking for which are desperately needed everywhere in the U.S. right now. Better dust off your employee engagement strategies and update your compensation models, Nashville employers! 2020 is going to be a tough year!

This decision signals one other potential massive shift for IT. Washington D.C. was already a pretty big IT hub with all the government work, but now moving this many IT related jobs to the East Coast could begin a big shift away from organizations believing you have to be in Silicon Valley to hire IT talent. Amazon will bring and grow IT talent for the entire east coast and strengthen those cities as large IT hubs worldwide.

Amazon definitely didn’t help workers out from a quality of life standpoint. Both D.C. and NYC are awful in terms of cost and commute, at least in California you get sunshine in your closet of an apartment!

The decision for me showed that Amazon truly looked at labor markets and demographics (and some giant tax breaks – which, let’s be honest, everyone was willing to give) as the major decision points in the location of the new headquarters. The U.S. demographics over the next decade should be a major concern for large employers. More workers will leave the workforce than are coming into the workforce, so you better be close to where we tend to grow white collar, educated workers.

This is a win for higher education as much as it is for Washington D.C. and New York City.

Back to Human! @DanSchawbel

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Dan Schawbel‘s new book, “Back to Human” launches today and he was kind enough to send me a copy months ago since he rightly assumed I’m probably a slow reader! If you don’t know Dan, you should! Dan is a New York Times best-selling author and he’s one of those guys that cares about our industry in HR and Talent Acquisition.

Dan was named to Inc.’s 30 under 30 and he might be the most influential voice of the Millennial generation. He wrote his first book, “Me 2.0” to help his generation land their first job. He wrote his second book, “Promote Yourself” to help lead them up the career ladder. Now, with his third book, “Back to Human”, Dan is helping them become great leaders of people.

I’ve known Dan for a number of years. He basically pisses me off, because he’s who I think I should be twenty years ago! He’s smart, motivated, and he gets it!

So, what’s “Back to Human” all about? 

Dan, in conjunction with Virgin Pulse, did a huge research study of over 2,000 leaders and employees around a rather new concept of isolated workforces in the age of remote work. The research showed that remote work actually doesn’t help keep employees long term, in fact, remote workers are more likely to leave your employment because of the lack of connection with other workers.

Only 5% of remote workers could see themselves working in their employers for their entire career, compared to 33% of workers who work in non-remote work environments. That’s substantial! Especially when you think about how much we (HR, TA, Leaders) have pushed our organizations down this path of remote work environments because we felt everyone wanted to work remotely! Turns out people don’t want to work remotely! People just like being at home and getting paid! (that’s my assessment, not Dan’s!)

While remote work promotes flexibility and eliminates commuting costs, it has made employees more isolated, lonely and less committed to their teams and organizations. Technology has enabled us to work remotely, but at a huge cost!

I really like Dan’s new book because he gives practical advice for leaders to help foster human connections amongst employees and their leaders. What Dan’s research found out is that we as leaders can’t think about meeting the needs of our employees, especially remote employees, if we aren’t willing to get personal and really work to understand them in a one-on-one level. The problem is most leaders actually do the opposite with remote employees!

Another cool piece about the book is the amount of information around young leaders in how they think and how we can help them develop into better leaders faster.

If you’re looking for a great book to get your leaders and aspiring leaders for your organization, go check out Dan Schawbel’s Back to Human. Well worth the read!

Stop Saying “We Love Vets!” You don’t, or You would actually Hire them for real jobs! #VeteransDay

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Veteran’s Day was yesterday! I’m sure your social media team made a big deal out it. Send around a lot of American Flag IG and Twitter posts. Even put up a blog post on your site about how much you just love Vets! The problem is, it’s all a big fat lie!

You don’t love Vets! You love the concept of being politically correct and wrapping your company and brand around the American flag! It’s basically Stolen Valor what you’re doing on your career site, acting like you love to hire Vets!

If you really loved Vets you wouldn’t be trying to hire someone who led a platoon of a hundred soldiers into battle for a $12/hr job with no career progression! You wouldn’t be trying to hire someone who was responsible for hundred’s of millions of dollars of machinery and resources into a $17/hr warehouse job. But, that’s how ‘you’ love Vets, right? Give them a shitty job!

I’m not a Vet. Never served. Really never even thought about serving. My grandfather fought in WWII and he gave me his medals when I was a young boy. Told me stories. I have uncles and cousins who are Vets.

I’ve hired countless Vets in my career. I find that Vets, compared to normal civilian hires, perform better on average. I hired a Vet to come work as a Recruiter for me, when he had no recruiter training (his name is Brian McIntosh – go connect with him, he’s awesome!) He was a tanker by Army trade. Not really something that correlates into great recruiting skills normally, but here are the skills he brought to us:

  • Dedication
  • Works his ass off
  • Team player
  • Motivated
  • Desire to learn
  • Exceptional at networking with other Vets
  • Colorful language! (Okay, I made that one up! But, hey, you spend some time in a hot tank and you’ll learn some colorful language as well!)

He normally would have been offered one of those $15/hr jobs. “Oh, you’re a tanker and have no real-world skills, that’s great we have a dead-end warehouse job for you to work in! We love our Vets!”

Think about how many great paying, salaried jobs you have that really can be taught to anyone. How many? 60%? 80%? That’s reality, right? Most of the jobs that we have can be taught to anyone with the desire,  the motivation, dedication, and willingness to learn.

I’m not trying to dump on decent paying hourly jobs. I know we have to fill these as well with great people, and some of those jobs turn into great careers for people, but let’s be real, our Vets aren’t looking at those jobs as their first choice upon serving our country. They want career jobs that fit the skills and training they received while serving our country.

So, what can you really do? 

My friend, Torin Ellis, came to the Michigan Recruiter’s Conference a couple of weeks ago and spoke about Diversity and Inclusion and made this comment – “You need to have a diverse recruiting team if you want to recruit diverse talent.”

So, if you want to hire Vets into real jobs in your company, you need to have Vets on your recruiting team! What we have found is our Vet recruiters know the environment and skills on both sides, so they know where a Vet will be most valuable in your organization based on those skills. A recruiter without this knowledge just looks at keywords on a resume, and thinks, “No fit” or “Hourly entry-level job”, not truly who this person is or could be for your organization!

Or you could also work with a Vet to come in and train your team around what jobs you have where Vets would be a great fit, and what questions they should be asking to find out what skills they really have. We find Vets aren’t the best at talking about some of the great skills they have, they don’t see as special, coming from a military environment.

Lastly, call out your hiring managers who say they support Vets, but then never hire a Vet when you put them in front of them. They aren’t supporting Vets, they just love wrapping themselves in the flag and acting like they support Vets.

Happy Veteran’s Day! Thank you for your service! If I can help you, please let me know.

I’m Addicted to Hustle Porn!

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You follow Gary Vee on Instagram, right? I mean he’s just a truth teller! I don’t go to church, but I do watch Gary Vee videos any time I really need something from a higher power! (My friend Connie Costigan just threw up in her mouth a little – she can’t stand Gary!)

Gary Vee is probably the king of Hustle Porn! He’s made himself extremely rich out making people believe all you need to do, to become successful, is outhustle and outwork the next person. I actually believe this concept, but only if you already have a number of other things, like a brain, a decent reputation, the ability to connect with people, some sort of skills, etc.

All things being close to equal, outhustling and outworking your competition will push you over the top more times than not.

So, what’s Hustle Porn?

Hustle Porn is the concept that people put out on social media about how hard they are hustling always. It’s that Instagram photo at midnight of you still in the office all dark, except your laptop screen going with your latest project. Basically, projecting that you’re successful because you’re working late into the night.

Hustle Porn is basically the same thing as Crossfit Porn, Gluten-free Porn, etc. For most people it has nothing to do with reality, it’s all a mirage, but what it’s doing is making us all believe we have to do these things to be successful. You always have to be on! I work 24/7/365! I never turn it off! If I’m not putting in 100 hours per week, I just don’t feel fulfilled! You know what I’m talking about, this porn gets thrown at us constantly!

Reddit’s Alexis Ophanian came out this week and called Hustle Porn the most toxic and dangerous things in technology, in regards to the tech work environment:

“This is one of the most toxic, dangerous things in tech right now,” he says. “This idea that unless you are suffering, grinding working every hour of every day, you’re not working hard enough.”

“It’s such bulls—, such utter bulls—.”

Ohanian is referring to the fetishization of extremely long work hours, typically by entrepreneurs or tech workers, who give up nights and weekends to code their software or build their businesses.

What do I think? 

I think Alexis is a whiny, rich, child!

No one told Alexis he had to work 100 hours a week to make his dreams come true. No one tells any of us that we have to work 100 hours per week to make our dreams come true.

But, guess what? It takes a lot of f’ing work to make your dreams come true!

Do you hear Bill Gates go, “Oh, I wish I would have worked less on Microsoft!” No. Did you hear Steve Jobs go, “Oh, if really regret all the time I put into Apple to make it successful!” No! There work is their passion, so they wanted to put that time in to make successful. In fact, if you asked them if they would do it all again, they would!

Building a successful business is the American Dream. American Dreams don’t happen if you work 9 to 5 pm. Sorry, that sucks, but’s it’s mostly true! Hard work doesn’t always guarantee success, but it delivers more success than average work. You will almost never find anyone go, “yeah, well you know, I just showed up to work each and did my 40 hours and that’s when it all came together and I became super successful!”

I don’t have any problem with people wanting and believing they need to work harder than everyone else to become successful. Very few will do it, in reality. It’s not for everyone. The majority of people will work a normal job, collect a check, have other things in their life, and complain about some rich prick who has everything and they don’t understand why. But, those same people will never put in the work. The real work. The hard work. The long work.

The world needs ditch diggers. The world needs cashiers. Accountants. Lawyers. Doctors. Teachers. Engineers, etc. The world also needs those crazy entrepreneurs who will work ungodly hours for years trying to make their dream come true.

My issue with Hustle Porn is when you see idiots masking as hustlers when you know the truth! They throw up that IG photo of them flying on Sunday and they think somehow they’re a superhero because they flew out on personal time to make a Monday morning meeting in another city. Welcome to the show idiot, you’re not a superhero, that’s life!

The real hustlers don’t have to show how hard they’re working, what they will produce, will tell their hustle story.

Turning in that ‘work related’ strip club expense!

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It’s 2018 and Under Armour, this past week wanted to make sure that their staff knew it was no longer okay to turn in receipts for business expense reimbursement from strip clubs! From the Wall Street Journal article:

“on Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the sports apparel company Under Armour had ended the “long-standing company practice” of letting employees expense strip club visits to their corporate cards…the story reported that “over the years, executives and employees … went with athletes or co-workers to strip clubs after some corporate and sporting events, and the company often paid for the visits of many attendees.”

So, not at all surprised, this type of thing is going on in corporate America, because at one point in my career I actually approved these types of expenses! Now, this was two decades ago, and I wasn’t in a position to change this policy at the time, but I know firsthand this type of stuff goes down!

It brings up an entire issue around what is appropriate work-related, client entertainment options. So, we are saying in 2018 going to the strip club is not appropriate, I think we can all come to an agreement on this, that is unless your actual profession is running strip clubs!

So, let’s start adding to this list of inappropriate work-related, client entertainment options:

– Vegas-style Burlesque Show – basically any show that is showing naked bodies for the sake of showing naked bodies, right?

– Any venue that includes prostitutes – So, taking a client to Ruth Chris is fine, taking a client to Ruth Chris with a hooker is not fine. Top Golf is awesome, Top Golf with strippers or prostitutes is not awesome unless it’s a bachelor party, not mine, honey, someone else’s.

– Marijuana dispensaries – Sure it’s legal in a lot of states, but let’s not take our clients out and break a federal law.

– Crack Houses – No explanation needed – No strip clubs and no crack houses.

– Church – Oh, what!? Yeah, look I don’t want you taking a client to Church and you better not try and turn an expense in for the $10 bill you threw into the offering plate!

– Skydiving or similar activities – Killing a client is never a good business development strategy. So, let’s just take off activities that might kill someone.

– Apple Orchard, Pumpkin Patch, Hayride places – I’m just putting my foot down on the losers that actually think this is entertainment. It’s apple cider and donuts. If that’s your idea of entertainment you should be fired.

– Any Running-type races – Marathons, 5Ks, Tough Mudders – Running isn’t entertainment, it’s a punishment for when you don’t play a real sport well, or you screw up a play for the tenth straight time, or to get away from your screaming kids and nagging spouse, but it’s not entertainment.

– Massages – I love a great massage, but I’m never taking a client to get a message! That’s super creepy! Just don’t ever turn in that receipt!

– A Nickleback concert – Or really any concert that takes place at an Indian Casino. No, I want to support the tribe, I don’t want to support dried up entertainment acts! Let’s treat our clients better than that! Sure I love Hall and Oates to, but I don’t love Hall and Oates when other people are signing their songs and they’re just standing on stage as props. That just makes me and my client sad.

Okay, hit me in the comments on which work-related, client entertainment we should add to the list!

 

My Parents Never Told Me Who They Voted For.

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Today we wake up and go to work like any other day. We will talk about the elections that took place yesterday. They’ll be people who will be ecstatic over the results, there will be people upset, but most will just go about their day, just like yesterday. That’s our reality, a single election doesn’t change our normal day to day life.

I grew up with educated, professional parents. They worked white collar jobs. They paid taxes. They cared about social issues and worshipped in their respective ways. My parents never really spoke about politics, or more likely, they did, but I was more interested in going outside and throwing and catching a ball, or riding my bike.

Some will say those were simpler times, but ‘those’ times were no simpler than these times. My parents still had to find ways to make ends meet, and still, try and provide a life for me that was better than the life they had, like we all do for our own families. I think those in an older generation would say those times were definitely more “civil”, and those who have modern views would probably call that naive.

I talk about politics a lot with my sons. I tease them about voting for who I vote for, but they know I support them in voting for whomever they want. I try to get them to understand that both sides are flawed. No one side is ever perfect, and much of how you lean depends on your place in life. I’m not sure it’s right or wrong, but I want them to make informed decisions.

What I try to get them to understand is the wisest people I know in every gender and race, see both the good and bad on both sides. They tend to be moderate in their beliefs no matter what they believe because they understand while I might believe very strongly about many policies and stances with one party, I might also believe in a policy or stance in another party. I remember that both sides are fundamentally flawed.

There is no winner or loser in an election. There are just all of us left needing and hoping for solid leadership in all aspects of our lives, not just one or two aspects. Hoping for a better world to live in, for all of us, not just some of us. Understanding that we come from different eras, different parts of the world, different backgrounds, and none of those are wrong, they’re just different.

Those differences are what make America great, and they are what makes America so very difficult to lead.

My parents never told who they voted for and I never asked them why. It probably had to do with a number of factors but the biggest being that as children we are very black and white in our decision making. One thing is good. One thing is bad. Politics are completely gray. So, I appreciate that they let me be a kid for a while longer. I love my country and all its flaws, and I’ll keep working to make it better.

Your Weekly Dose of HR Tech: @LinkedIn’s Talent Hub – LI jumps into the ATS space! @HireOnLinkedIn

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Today on The Weekly Dose I dive into LinkedIn’s foray into the applicant tracking space, with Talent Hub. For years the LinkedIn super users have been begging for an ATS from LI, and at LinkedIn Talent Connect their wish was finally granted! LinkedIn is calling their new ATS, Talent Hub and it’s built for mid-sized organizations that are full LinkedIn Recruiter users.

You don’t have to be LinkedIn Recruiter users to actually use Talent Hub, but it would be silly if you weren’t. Talent Hub was built for the sole purpose of being able to utilize all of LI’s products more effectively and efficiently, primarily Recruiter being the main one.

Why use LinkedIn Talent Hub for your ATS? 

First, if you already have an ATS and you’re a LinkedIn Recruiter shop (meaning you use LI Recruiter as your primary source of candidates) LI did build Recruiter System Connect (RSC) and has already built out integrations with many of the largest ATS’s on the market (Greenhouse, Jobvite, Taleo), and also built integrations with non-ATS providers like Workday Recruit.

Most mid-sized recruiting shops currently use around 9 tools to attract and hire candidates. Most of those shops would prefer one tool, full integration. Talent Hub was built to be that one tool, assuming you already use LinkedIn Recruiter has your primary sourcing tool. Also, crazy customization is not something you need. Talent Hub is a Saas model ATS and can be configured, but not customized. I find most mid-sized shops don’t need customization as all, so this will be a good fit.

What do I like about LinkedIn Talent Hub? 

– Love how LI built out a workflow that is modern, effective, and efficient. From the first intake/strategy meeting with a hiring manager, Talent Hub gives you market insights immediately while you’re building out the requisition with your hiring manager, that will help you save time and resources right off the bat!

– Talent Hub was built for hiring manager collaboration and they have their own dashboard that not only allows them to view and comment on candidates, it also gives them a deep view of the work that is being done (or not done) by the recruiting team on their opening. No longer will you have to answer the question, “So, what’s happening with my req?” Every HM will know in real-time what’s been done! I absolutely love this! LinkedIn is calling this the “Hiring Manager Digest”.

– Job distribution and social share are built in and you would expect that from a newly built ATS. What you get from Talent Hub is a fully integrated sourcing platform that as soon as you put in your requisition the system is already working in LI to show you exactly who’s in your talent pool to begin sourcing.

– Inmail and Email in one fully integrated platform. No longer will you have to deal with two inboxes, now you will have one for all of your email related communications.

– A robust scheduling tool that is really next level as compared to other ATSs in this market and price point. Allows your recruiting team to place values and priorities on each part of the interview process, so that if your number one decision maker has to cancel for some reason, the system automatically updates and reschedules everyone so a candidate isn’t being pulled back and forth until the ‘right’ person can be there.

– Offer process includes real-time market compensation data as part of the process to help the organization waste less time messing around with below-market offers.

What you won’t find in Talent Hub: 

– Indeed and Google for Jobs have no integration with Talent Hub, so your jobs won’t automatically show up on those platforms and you’ll have to manually work to get your job on those platforms or build workarounds.

– No Text/SMS messaging, although, I’m told this is on the roadmap. I understand why it’s not there, as it hurts Inmail usage, but in a modern ATS text messaging is a must, especially if you’re using your ATS/Recruiting platform to hire hourly candidates.

Talent Hub is fully designed to take advantage of LinkedIn’s other recruiting tools. It’s designed for non-LinkedIn users, and for good reason! LinkedIn Recruiter users wanted something to help them hire more candidates, faster, and LinkedIn definitely delivered on that! We can argue until the cows come home on whether or not a recruiting shop should be tied so strongly to one tool, or not, but it’s really a moot point. Talent Hub was designed for those who love using LI Recruiter and find it very effective. It was not designed for some super sourcer who has 32 Chrome sourcing extensions.

Should you demo Talent Hub? If you use LinkedIn daily to recruit, you should demo! The integrations between the products are super tight and make it really easy to use. The hiring manager digest is something every single ATS will steal and put on their roadmap! The data insights that help you with your intake meetings with hiring managers are a game changer.  So, yes, go give it a demo and see what you think!

The Weekly Dose – 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 The Weekly Dose – just send me a note – timsackett@comcast.net

Want help with your HR & TA Tech company – send me a message about my HR Tech Advisory Board experience.

Tim Sackett, Best Life Coach Ever!

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I believe the concept of ‘Life Coach’ is the biggest con anyone has been able to pull off in the history of mankind.  That being said I personally know some folks who love having a life coach (#WhitePeopleProbs).  I do like the concept of ‘Business Coaches’ or ‘Leadership Coaches’, I see those things a bit differently based on what I see in organizations.

Two unique things happen in organizations that make the concept of Business Coach more viable:

1. We promote our best workers to managers.

2. Leaders are put on an island with no one to confide in.

Both ideas above are systematically flawed.  Just because you’re the ‘best’ worker doesn’t make you a good manager.  You might be, but you also might be a colossal failure.  Being in a senior leader’s role, and giving you no one to really be able, to be honest, also has bad consequences.   A business coach can help both sides succeed, where normal organizational training fails.

You can give new managers all kinds of training, but there comes a time when one-on-one, let’s walk through a specific scenario you are having, just works better for learning and development of that person.   Also, a leader needs to get ideas out of their head to someone they trust will give them good and honest feedback about how freaking crazy they are!   Subordinates won’t do this, and peers might use it against them to position themselves for the next move.

I’m a big fan of Business Coaches.  I think organizations underutilize this approach because it seems expensive.  The reality is, it’s usually a billable hour or two per month, to ensure you have well-functioning leadership.  That total cost might be $5000 per year.  I’m really hoping any manager or leader you have brings in exponentially much more profit than $5000 per year!

Which leads me to Tim Sackett, Life Coach.

I could be a life coach.  I have a feeling it would go a little like this:

Mark, Life Coachee: “Hey, Tim great to talk to you, just wanted to dive right into a problem I’m having, is that okay?”

Tim Sackett, Life Coach: “No, it’s not okay. That’s your problem Mark, you’re always thinking about you!  What about me and my freaking problems!”

Mark: “Uh, sorry. But I thought I’m paying you to help me on my stuff.”

Tim: “No, you’re paying me because I’m smart and have my shit together, and you can’t figure out how to manage your own daily simple life.”

Mark: “I don’t think this is what I expected.”

Tim: “Yes it is. That’s your problem Mark, you think too much.  You’re now paying me to do your thinking.”

Mark: “Okay, I’ll play along and see where this is going.”

Tim: “Mark here’s what ‘we’ are going to do. First, you’re getting your butt up each day and you’re going to work. Second, you’re going to stop whining about your life. Third, you’re going to go home and be an active part of your family life, and stop acting like you should be able to have a family and still act like you’re in college, you’re not.”

Mark: “But you don’t understand, I work in a stressful job!”

Tim: “Shut up, you’re an accountant. Stress is not knowing where you’re sleeping tonight because you don’t have a place to live.  You don’t have stress, you have normal.”

I have a strong feeling my ‘Life Coaching’ sessions would only go one session, and everyone would be fixed, so I’m going to have to figure out that pricing model.  If you want to set up an appointment, just hit me in the comments and we can get that set up immediately, I take PayPal!

The Newest Leadership Concept that will take 2019 by Storm: “Sunshining”!

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Have you heard of “Sunshining“? I’m guessing most of us haven’t. I came from Reed Hastings the CEO at Netflix. Netflix has a really transparent work environment and Reed and his executive team has started telling employees exactly why someone has been fired. They call these talks “Sunshining”!

It’s not just about explaining why someone got fired, it could be about almost anything. This radical transparency is part of Netflix’s unique culture and employee experience. If you have a question about anything, you’re encouraged to ask out in the open, and leadership is encouraged to welcome these discussions, even those that might be taboo in most company cultures:

In one “sunshining” scene described by the Journal, former talent chief Tawni Nazario-Cranz was asked by Hastings in front of dozens of executives why she paid for some of her team’s makeup and hair styling ahead of a company launch event. Nazario-Cranz said that if a manager took employees to a golf outing it wouldn’t be questioned, which led to a debate about “gender equity,” one person in attendance told the paper.

Employees are also encouraged to review each other and share feedback with their teams. There are”real-time 360″ lunches and dinners for feedback and criticism, with one former executive saying the pressure to participate was the “hardest part about the culture.”

 

Can you imagine sitting down in front of a department of employees and saying, “Hey, everyone, you all know Tim, your boss, well, I just fired Tim because Tim quite frankly wasn’t getting the results we hired him to get. Tim is right here, right now. Let’s discuss!”

 

Um, what!?! “Yeah, hey guys, let me wipe the tears away from my eyes, I’m still in a bit of shock, I guess I’m most concerned with how I’m going to pay my mortgage and tell my partner I just got fired, but what would you like to know?”

 

Holy crap! That could not happen, ever! Unless you had this culture of ongoing performance feedback and accountability where it was 100% out in the open that this was happening and there was no ill will. Even then, I’m still skeptical! I mean, I’m willing to sit down as a fired employee and talk to the troops if Reed is giving a giant parachute! “Oh, yeah, hey guys, I just lost my job, but I’m fine, I’m thinking of taking a couple of years off to pet puppies or something!”

 

Do you think your company culture could handle this right now?

 

I’m doubtful, primarily because this isn’t something you can just turn on and the next day start doing it. This is a fairly radical cultural shift to even open up and be that transparent across the organization. I think most of us would tell ourselves we would love to work in that type of environment until the mirror is turned on ourselves!

 

That’s a tough leadership environment to be a part of for sure!

 

What didn’t make it through Netflix’s leadership team? 

 

Having employees see each other’s salary! Reed wanted to open this up, the rest of the leadership shot this down:

 

Starting last year, Netflix allowed any executive above the director level to see the salaries of all employees, a decision that, like most of those detailed by the Journal, received mixed reviews from the people interviewed. In the case of employee pay, some said it led to awkwardness, while others said it encouraged people making less money to try and get raises. However, Netflix executives recently shot down an effort by Hastings to allow any employee to see the pay of any colleague, regardless of rank, the paper said.

 

I think that’s a giant step of any organization, but it’s probably the one step that needs to happen to fix gender pay inequality for good!

Where are you spending your HR Technology Marketing budget?

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I saw the graph below the other day and it got me thinking about where should we be spending our budget to get in front of the right buyer?

If you’re in HR or Recruiting you can’t help but take notice of how and where vendors are trying to catch your eyeballs!

The classic play is by Ultimate Software, Oracle, and Workday when you watch a Professional Golf Association (PGA) event. All the big HCM payers sponsor pro golfers. In fact, Ultimate Software is a grand slam, err hole in one, when Patrick Reed (see pic above) won the 2018 Masters! You can’t buy that kind of promotion! Literally! You never know if your person will win or not!

But, is Ultimate and the rest making the right call? Do you think 64-year-old white dudes are the ones making the call on enterprise HCM buys? I tend to believe that probably not the demographic of an HR technology buyer, but it is probably the demographic of the decider, right now.

I’ll say, this isn’t a rip on Ultimate, or any other vendor, Ultimate also sponsors the NBA Miami Heat and the Ultimate logo is on the Heat’s jersey. So, they are also covering the younger side of the sports watching base as well! Infor also got in the business with the Brooklyn Nets this past year. Of course, Golden State plays in Oracle Arena.

When I think of the best possible ways to get your brand and logo in front of the buyers of HR and Recruiting technology I first think of the demographics. Most of HR and Recruiting is female dominated. Women, statistically, like to watch the NFL and College Football, then pro and college basketball, followed by baseball and soccer.

The NFL is super expensive, so that’s a really hard get. MLS soccer might be the most accessible and cheapest opportunity to get!

I like to believe, depending on your market, that major college sports are always a big draw, and the Olympics are always giant, especially the summer Olympics. They didn’t have ‘Gaming’ on this chart, but eSports is growing like crazy and that would be another segment to take a look at in terms of relatively inexpensive ways to get your brand in front of a younger buying group and build brand awareness.

Where should you be spending your HR Tech Marketing budget? 

This changes quite a bit whether you’re selling to enterprise versus selling to large, mid, or small sized organizations. Why? Enterprise purchases happen through an RFP process for the most part, so those marketing dollars are really spent on brand awareness. Just get invited to the RFP, and then win from there. Some large-sized organizations will RFP some stuff, but not all purchases. Almost no RFPs are done on mid and small sized organizations.

I think almost every HR Technology company discounts the impact that individual contributors and mid-managers have on the buying process!

I’ve worked in and ran large to small HR/TA organizations and the one common component was the people doing the day to day work were usually the ones bringing ideas and options to leadership around technology. “Hey, Tim, I was just on a webcast and XYZ company is using this new tool to hire more college kids, blah, blah, blah. We need to demo this!”

Of course, the ultimate decision to hit the budget is made by some sort of leader, but rarely do I find leaders are the ones bringing possible technology solutions to their teams. And if they do, it’s almost always via a question like, “hey, have you guys heard of XYZ product?” Which opens the gates to discussions, which leads to other possible tools, which leads to demos, etc.

I tend to believe those organizations that focus on selling to users get better traction and higher adoptions of their products, that those who do nothing but try and get in front of executives. I said this consistently for 2-3 years if you’re trying to sell a TA product and you’re not at SHRM Talent, you have no idea how to sell. There will be 3,000 TA Pros and Leaders at the conference, and the ratio of companies in the expo is super low as compared to other conferences!

Why? The feeling is individual TA contributors, TA managers, TA directors, don’t have enough juice to buy, so why go? It’s a mistake. Some of the fastest growing TA technologies on the planet are going grassroots and making fans out of the users, who are then pushing them up the chain to the decision makers. When the entire industry is just trying to talk to executives, maybe you should be talking to users!