The Super Bowl Should be on Saturday: An Employer’s Plea

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So, it’s the Monday after Super Bowl and 15% of your employees didn’t show up. As HR professionals we are not shocked by this, it happens every year after the Super Bowl.

The Super Bowl has become an unofficial national holiday. You don’t even have to like the teams playing to want to go to a Super Bowl party, or throw a Super Bowl party, because it’s become a national social event.

Kraft Foods understands this and instead of trying to move the Super Bowl started an online petition to declare the Monday after the Super Bowl a national holiday, since, they claim, more than 16 million employees call in ‘sick’ the day after the Super Bowl costing organizations over $1 billion in lost productivity.

Think you have a God-given right to be off the day after the Super Bowl? Kraft Heinz agrees with you. So the food company’s giving all of its salaried employees the day off on February 6 after Super Bowl LI…

In addition to letting its employees stay home, Kraft Heinz is launching a campaign to push for everybody to be off after Super Bowls. It’s started an online petition to essentially create a new national holiday it calls “Smunday,” which extends Sunday’s Super Bowl fun into Monday.

Okay, some of this is just good old fashion marketing. Kraft Heinz food group makes a killing on Super Bowl weekend, so why not try a marketing stunt like this to drum up even more business and brand recognition!

The problem with this solution is it doesn’t really help employers gain back lost productivity and revenue, in fact, it only increases expenses by now having another paid holiday (an expense), with nothing to return the lost productivity of having your entire workforce off for a day.

The issue is that the NFL should move the Super Bowl game to Saturday evening or day. Can you imagine the nationwide party that would take place, over what it already is, if the Super Bowl was on Saturday night!

The NFL already gives both teams an extra week off to prepare. Starting the game on Saturday, instead of Sunday, wouldn’t harm the players, wouldn’t harm the NFL, and bars and restaurants would have even a bigger day than they do already.

If Kraft Heinz really wants to help America, they should change their petition to move the Super Bowl to Saturday, not just make up another work holiday.

Dear Timmy: When Should I Leave My First Job?

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Dear Timmy, 

I graduated college a couple of years ago and took a job with a good company. I’m an engineer and I like my job and I like the people I work with, but I’m getting calls from recruiters telling me they can get me a lot more money. My question is, when can I leave my first job so that it doesn’t look like I’m a job hopper? 

Thanks,

I Don’t Want To Look Like A Job Hopper

—————————————————–

Dear Job Hopper, (just kidding!)

Why should you leave?! If you want more money, go ask for more money!

That’s the real issue, right? Instead of having a conversation about your value on the open market, you would rather leave a company and job you like. This makes absolutely no sense, but people do it all the time because they are unwilling to have a conversation that makes them feel uncomfortable!

It’s pretty silly when you think about it. I’m willing to risk a job I like, a company I like, and Coworkers I like for a 10-20% raise. Instead of just going to your boss and saying:

“Hey, Tim, I’ve been getting a ton of calls from recruiters. Each time they are saying they can get me a job making 20% more than I’m making now. You know, or if you don’t you should, I really like working here. I like you as a boss, I like the company, and I like what I’m doing. But, I also would really like 20% more pay! Is there anything you can do to help me?”

Now, it’s critical you do this before you start engaging with recruiters and going out on interviews. Why? Because once you do that, now your loyalty will come into question.

Most organizations are willing to pay you more, but they really only want to pay people more who are 1. Good performers, and 2. Going to stay around. If you’re already interviewing, without giving them a shot to make it right with you, you are basically just showing them you’ll eventually just take off again the next time someone calls offering you a dollar more.

When should I leave my first job? 

That is a very different question than what you are really asking. There’s no reason to leave your first job if all of your career needs are being met. So, you need to ask yourself, about this first job,

  • Am I doing work I like to do? (Not love. Love your family. Don’t love your job. Like your job.)
  • Am I in a position where I’m being developed in a way that will continue to help my career going forward? (Remember, you own your own development. Don’t wait for an organization to ‘put you on a plan’, build your own plan. What you need is an organization that allows you to do this, and supports you to do this.)
  • Do I feel valued by my organization and my boss? (Value comes across in a lot of ways. Don’t discount working with and for people who truly care about you.)
  • Am I being paid at the market for my education, skills, and experience? (Everyone can get paid over the market, but you give up stuff to get that money. Usually, you give up working for good companies and good people.)
  • Does this position, company and location still fit where I want to be personally with my life? (Sometimes your personal life changes where you want to be professionally, and there is not much organizations can do about that in many cases, but sometimes they can.)

So, whey should you leave your first job?

You should leave your first job when the answers to the questions above show you that it’s time to leave. You should not leave your first job because you are unwilling to have a conversation that makes you feel awkward or uncomfortable, in fact, to me that would be the first sign that you’re not ready to leave that first job!

Employee Betrayal is Something You Never Get Over

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You probably missed this recently, another lawsuit, another former employee ‘allegedly’ stealing company secrets and taking them to their new employer who just happens to be developing the same or similar product as their past employee. This one is interesting because it evolves one of the company that everyone in tech seems to want to work for, Tesla.

Here the information on the lawsuit:

Tesla filed a suit against its former director of Autopilot, Sterling Anderson, on Thursday, alleging he attempted to recruit engineers from Tesla to join the self-driving startup he and the former CTO of Google’s self-driving arm, Chris Urmson, were establishing.

The suit further alleged that Anderson downloaded “hundreds of gigabytes of Tesla confidential and four proprietary information” documents to his personal computer. When he was terminated, Anderson returned the documents, but not the backups he created, the company alleged.

In addition to making offers to a dozen Tesla employees — only two of whom accepted, according to the suit — Tesla is also alleging Anderson worked on the company Urmson was starting, called Aurora, during company time. Recode first reported that Urmson was starting his own self-driving company and that he was recruiting big names from many players, including Tesla and Uber.

There’s always two sides to every story, but this one always plays out about the same way. The original company hires you, trains you, develops you, gives you the opportunity to be a part of something great. The employee then says “F-you, I’m using all of this knowledge to benefit someone else. I mean it’s my brain, not yours.”

That’s really the extent of every employer-employee betrayal, like this one. Of course, in their minds, both sides are correct.

The reality is, and Mr. Anderson knows this, he would have never gotten the information into his brain if he Tesla never put him in a position, and billions of dollars of development, to get such knowledge. As you can imagine, Telsa feels betrayed. Mr. Anderson feels like he’s completely innocent. The courts will decide.

This has gone on since the beginning of time and will continue. Companies spend way too much money on developing ideas to have them just walk out the front door. As of today, it’s illegal for companies to kill employees who try and take this knowledge to the competition or start their own company on the back of all the work they got from their previous employer.

Here’s what I know. As a leader, you never forget this betrayal. You can forgive, but you won’t forget. It’s less about the ‘stealing’ of secrets and more about the break in trust. You were a part of the team, and you decided to leave and go play for the other team (and you took our playbook!). That employee will be forever dead in your eyes. They burned the ultimate bridge.

The employee would argue the other side. “Hey, wait, I should be able to take my skills and work anywhere I want!” For many employees, this is the case. For some, for those who get brought into the ‘circle of trust’ and get to see the secret sauce recipe, you give up this right. Or at least, you give up the right to go to another employer and share trade secrets. The line of betrayal is fine and sharp. You never really want to find yourself on either side of it, because no one wins.

You Don’t Actually Have To Retain Everyone!

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In 2017, and beyond, employee retention will become a huge focus. Some could argue that employee retention is always an important issue, but during major recessions, it becomes less of a stress for sure. With shifting employee demographics, retention will be a hot item over the next few years as we see more and more of the baby boom generation leave the workforce, and we do not have enough young skilled workers entering the workforce to replace those leaving.

Here’s a dirty little secret, though:

“You don’t actually have to work to retain every one of your employees!”

Why? Because most of your employees won’t leave. We like to tell ourselves that every employee can leave, and by the law of the land (at least for now under the Trump administration), they actually can, but statistics clearly show that most don’t leave.

The average retention rate across all industries is about 85%, year over year. That means 85 out of 100 employees will probably not leave you. You are really worrying about 10-15% of employees. Ironically, it’s about 10-15% of your top performing employees that make the most difference in your company.

First, we have to solve one problem you have. Your ‘retention’ strategy is flawed and is actually pushing good employees out the door, the ones you want to keep!

Here’s why:

  1. You’re smart and send out a retention survey to find out from all of your employees what they want to be retained. You’re like 99% of organizations.
  2. The results of that survey tell you what the majority of your employees want to be retained. Things like ping pong, hot yoga, 27 smoke breaks a day, free tacos on Tuesday, etc.
  3. You implement a variety of the desired retention ‘fixes’! Yay!!!
  4. Your retention number actually stays the same, or maybe even gets worse.

WTF!?!?!?

Remember what I said above? You shouldn’t be concerned with about 85% of your employees who will never leave. They are not going anywhere! You shouldn’t be surveying all of your employees, you should be surveying only your best employees, those you are desperate at keeping!

What you’ll find is that the 10-15% of high valued employees you want to retain, what they want to be retained is very different from what the hoard wants to be retained! They’ll want a clear career path, performance-based compensation, more talented co-workers, better work tools, etc. They could give a shit about ping pong and Taco Tuesday.

Great HR isn’t working to make everyone equal. Great HR is working to make your organization better than your competition. That happens by having noticeably better talent. You get that kind of talent by listening to those employees who are noticeably better, not those who complain about the color of your new carpet.

What would this create?  It creates a high performing organization that attracts high-performing employees. Most organizations won’t do this because they believe they need to work to retain all of their employees. “We’re all high performing, Tim!” No, you’re not. Once you get that idea out of your head, you can do some really cool, industry changing stuff!

T3 – ENGAGE (@engage_talent) – Using Predictive Analytics to Source Talent

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This week on T3 I’m reviewing the sourcing solution ENGAGE. ENGAGE allows recruiters to source from a real-time stream of over 100 million passive candidate profiles and receive alerts of when a candidate is more than likely ready to ‘engage’ you in a conversation about a new job.

How does ENGAGE know that a candidate is in the mood? Welcome to the world of predictive analytics! Named one of Gartner’s 2016 Cool Vendors, ENGAGE has built an algorithm that is fairly accurate in guessing when a person is probably more likely to be ready to change jobs.

The science behind combines a ton of stuff: competitor data, Glassdoor rating of their current company, key stats, recent company news, etc. Based on the algorithm they color-code each candidate from red to green. Green meaning they’re more likely to be able to be recruited.

ENGAGE uses 15 plus people aggregators to pull in the 100 Million plus profiles. They’ve also partnered with Payscale to also provide a ballpark salary range of the candidate based on all the criteria they’ve been able to gather on the profile.

What I liked about ENGAGE:

– ENGAGE allows you build both candidate and company ‘watch’ lists. You can build a search for let’s say “Facebook” and it will continually update your list as people at that company move from red to green, or vice verse. You can also do this by skill sets and search strings for candidates. Having a list that could change daily of when someone is ready to be recruited!

– Get daily emails sent to you on your most recent alerts for your most likely recruiting sources.

– ENGAGE also has a Chrome extension that allows you to easily pull information on target organizations and keep internal notes without having to jump back and forth into the system. This extension also works with LinkedIN showing you the ENGAGE information with one click directly from LinkedIn Recruiter.

– It has an intuitive search interface that will show you ‘similar’ candidates not only based on search terms, but on the type of target organizations, locations, etc. Also, the system allows you to export your search lists and easily upload them into your CRM.

– ENGAGE has made large investments into also providing actual candidate phone numbers and email addresses, and not just main company phone numbers, but actual cell phones, direct dial extensions, etc.

One thing that ENGAGE isn’t being sold for, yet, but I instantly saw as a secondary value is actually tracking the ENGAGE score of your own employees. Retention of your own talent is one of the most important issues we face an ENGAGE can actually be used to show you when someone in your own organization is most likely getting to the point of being recruitable.

Knowing this would allow us to set up a save strategy and work to re-recruit the individual moving them back into the red ENGAGE score, and less likely they’ll leave our organization. There a ton of sourcing tools on the market. Most of which are based on legacy data scraped from various places. What I really like about ENGAGE is the predictive nature. Well worth a look and demo (enter the code “fistfuloftalent” for a 5% discount).

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 – just send me a note – timsackett@comcast.net

Most of Your Dream Won’t Come True…

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…but some will.

That’s what it’s all about. We don’t live and work and struggle to reach every single dream. That’s impossible. We do all of this for the chance we might actually get the chance to see some of our dreams come true. Maybe even just one. I guess it depends on what kind of a dreamer you are.

I dream of great cookies (okay, not all my dreams are big, but they’re all mine!). I had some once in small local hoagie place in Omaha, NE. The best cookies I’ve ever had. I think the secret ingredient was crack because I could never get enough of them.

Okay, that was a small dream. But I got to experience it! And, it was glorious! It’s been more than ten years since I’ve had those cookies and I still remember them!

 Some dreams we have are giant and most likely won’t come true. I have a dream to coach the LA Lakers. It’s a dream. I’ve done almost nothing to fulfill this dream but dream about it and watch a lot of NBA games and coach my sons in rec league games. This dream, probably won’t come true.

 I’ve dreamed about my boys going to college. I started saving money for this when they were babies, and still save today. We pushed them constantly to get good grades and put their studies first. We made them go to bed at a decent time, even when they complained. We made them eat good food when they wanted junk, so they would have energy at school to learn. We sat with them and helped them fill out applications.

We made them eat good food when they wanted junk, so they would have energy at school to learn. We made sure homework was done before free time took place. We sat with them and helped them fill out applications.

 I have two boys in college and one well on his way. I worked for this dream, for a long time, in many ways.

 You see we all have dreams. Some just happen. Some will never happen. Some you have to work your ass off to make happen.

 Most of your dream won’t come true, but some will.

Would You Facebook Live Your Interview?

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A few weeks ago, after an NFL playoff game, a wide receiver from the Pittsburg Steelers, Antonio Brown, Facebook Lived his coaches post-game talk to the team. That kind of talk is almost always a private conversation between the coach and the players.

Beyond the concept of betrayal between player and coach, this entire thing got me thinking about how our world has changed in what society views and private vs. public. My parent’s generation is extremely private. You don’t talk about money, political beliefs, religion, love life, family, your job, etc., with anyone outside your immediate family, and maybe not even them!

My generation was a little less, we would speak our political beliefs, talk opening about relationships, etc. The most recent generation to enter the workforce seemingly will talk about anything publicly! Somedays it seems like nothing is off limits within the walls of the office, this was not always the case.

Antonio Brown’s Facebook Live broadcast of this private moment got me to think about how long is it until we see someone broadcast an interview live!? This is truly a private moment between candidate and hiring manager. A time that both could look awesome or like a total fool.

There might be value for both sides to broadcast an interview live.

From a candidate perspective, you could show yourself in a very good light. If you nail the interview, not only do you have proof but now others also can see this and might want to hire you. If you bomb, having a video of this to analyze might be the best thing to help you get better at interviewing.

From an employer perspective, having a live broadcast of an interview might be a bonanza of publicity from an employer branding standpoint. We already know if would take a unique organization to be willing to do this, and every organization is trying to find ways to set themselves apart from their competition for talent. It would also be a great record for employment law purposes to prove you were compliant during an interview (or vice verse).

It’s easy to pick apart this idea and see both good things and bad. I suspect most HR and TA pros would see more bad than good, which is why I like it! If the majority only see negative, you can use this to your advantage.

The reality is, if you do what you should do, you have nothing to worry about and only could really use this to your advantage. If you suck and you don’t trust your hiring managers, this isn’t for you! That’s most of us, by the way!

It’s something to think about. I don’t see us, as a society, going backward as it relates to privacy. Every day another privacy barrier is broken. My question is, how long until we begin broadcasting live from the interview room?

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”.

 

 

Ugh! I Did a Video Interview and I Sucked! @Hirevue Edition

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First, let me say I’m a giant advocate for video interviewing. I think it’s brilliant and I absolutely love the technology and truly believe it’s only a matter of time until every single pre-screen organizations do are most likely done via video.

All that being said, I had never done a video interview, personally, until a few weeks ago.

No, I’m not looking for another job! I got asked to apply for a Board position with the new organization the Association of Talent Acquisition Professionals (ATAP). Being someone who probably spends too much time advocating for TA Pros, I couldn’t say no.

Part of the interview process was doing a video interview because the committee selecting the board members were located all over the world. Having candidates do a video interview would make it more effective from a time and cost perspective, plus this is for a TA Pro association. If we don’t use TA tech, how can we lead others in these efforts!?

Thankfully, Hirevue donated the use of their software to the selection committee to help with this process. I’ve known Hirevue for years when they were just a small up-and-coming vendor in a small 10X10 booth in the back of the vendor hall at SHRM national! The first time I saw the technology, I was a fan. I’ve demoed them a number times as they’ve improved and grown the system beyond just video interviewing. I don’t think there’s an analyst in HR or TA that has shown Hirevue more love than I!

So, doing a video interview with Hirevue should have been super easy for me!

I wanted to write about this because it wasn’t super easy for me. I sucked! It’s hard. It’s awkward. And, I still think it’s brilliant!

What you don’t get about video interviewing, unless you actually do one for real (real, meaning you actually want what you’re interviewing for, not some fake demo interview to see how it works) is that it’s hard talking to a camera and getting no facial or body language cues from your interviewers!

Normally, when you interview, you get asked a question and you start talking. Based on the non-verbal clues you get from those interviewing you, you continually auto-adjust. Your tone. The length of your answer. Your tempo. Etc. When you answer a question to the camera, you get none of this, and it’s a heck of a lot more difficult than you think!

I was even given the questions beforehand so I could prepare my answers, which might have made it worse since then you feel like you should memorize your answers. Regardless, the entire thing comes off like a bad monolog by a D-level actor!

This is important to talk about because I think if your organization is going to use video interviewing, you need to put every single one of your hiring managers, and yourself, through one of these interviews, then allow everyone to watch each other! You and your team need this perspective to understand, what you see on video might not be the best representation of that individual.

While younger generations will probably be more comfortable videoing themselves, we still have a great number in the workforce that will come across awkward. Hiring managers using this technology have to understand this, not everyone will rock the video interview.

I will say, using the Hirevue platform was super simple and easy, anyone could do it. It’s almost too easy!

For the record, I got the position. You are now looking at, err reading, about the next Board member to the Association for Talent Acquisition Professionals. So, apparently, I sucked a little less than some other folks! But, I’m super excited, along with the other board members, to begin growing and working with ATAP! I can’t tell you how long I’ve desired and hoped for an association like SHRM, but for Talent Acquisition.

Check us out and join! My goal is that organizations around the world will seek out ATAP members when they look to hire great TA Pros and Leaders for their openings.

Here’s how to JOIN the Association of Talent Acquisition Professionals!

T3 – GoCo (@GoCoio) – Zenefits-like with a Better HRIS platform

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This week on T3 I take a look at the Zenefits-like HR software solution GoCo. GoCo is an all-in-one HR, Benefits and Payroll software platform that you can use completely free. Why can you use it for free? Because like Zenefits, there’s a ton of money to be made by managing your employee’s benefit program!

So, Zenefits started this industry. Basically, we’ll give you free software if you allow us to manage your benefits. GoCo one-upped the game by doing virtually the same thing, but building a better HRIS platform for you to use! What this means is if you really aren’t married to your benefits broker for some reason, you can get some great value out of an organization like GoCo.

I think this type of system is perfect for SMB organizations, and those HR shops of One, or two, who are asked to wear a thousand hats and given virtually zero budget to do it with. That’s a lot of HR pros out there right now! But, the GoCo HRIS platform is also much better than most mid-sized organizations are using as well!

What I liked about GoCo?

– Very robust HRIS suite that is fully mobile optimized, full employee self-serve dashboard, digital onboarding, allows multiple locations and states with unique onboarding for each and 24/7 access to benefits advisors.

– Performance Management – unlike most in this space PM is a luxury and GoCo does a great job with providing a real-time feedback mechanism where employees can respond to their supervisors feedback, managers can keep private notes, schedule their one-on-one meetings, and it also can integrate with Slack.

– Time off and tracking with customized built-in rules and policies, automated approval with supervisors via email that links back to payroll, and employees request through their own dashboard.

– Payroll fully integrated with the likes of Paylocity, Gusto, ADP, etc. Make all of your changes, additions, and corrections within GoCo and everything gets pushed to your provider automatically.

– Document management – send any new or updated docs to employees and GoCo notifies and tracks all required actions and the admin dashboard will easily show who is not compliant.

– Total workforce tracking – use temporary or contract employees? GoCo tracks all of these resources as well, which is unique for almost any system. This makes it super simple for HR to track your full workforce in one system.

I’m a little surprised that more organizations have jumped on board to free HRIS software like GoCo, but much of it has to do with the belief you don’t get anything for free. In reality, most of us have no idea how much money is actually being made by our insurance brokers! Zenefits opened our eyes to this, and GoCo seems to have taken it to the next level.

Using this type of organization doesn’t increase your insurance costs. But your brokers will make you believe you’ll get worse service and increased costs. For the most part, I haven’t heard this feedback coming from the user community. Most actually love it, because they finally have real HR software to help them manage their workforce. Well worth a demo, if you’re in this demographic.

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 – just send me a note – timsackett@comcast.net