T3- @WeVue – Where Culture Comes to Life

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This week on T3 I review the employment branding/culture mobile app WeVue. WeVue is a mobile app that enhances the experience of being on a team by bringing company culture to life through the power of photo and video sharing. It’s a mobile platform that turns your entire employee base into one big social network of sharing and communication.

It has a little Snapchat/Instagram Stories feel to it, but with a lot more functionality to communicate amongst teams. An employee gets started on WeVue by downloading the app and using their work email address as their way into company side of WeVue. From there the first thing they are taught to do is a step-by-step process of making a video of themselves for everyone in the organization to view, share and comment (think great first-day orientation exercises!).

WeVue allows your employees to share their stories and experiences with your organization simply and effectively. The platform also allows the team, or an individual, to celebrate accomplishments, start events, give positive feedback, etc. They can push these notifications to individuals, teams or the entire organization.

5 Things I really like about WeVue: 

1. WeVue is a mobile platform that has a very familiar UI/UX for most employees who are familiar with using social apps on mobile. This makes it user adoption much easier because almost everyone will download and immediately be able to begin using the app and setting up their profile.

2. I love that WeVue starts out by having each employee making an introduction video. This has so many applications to begin great orientations and make people feel instantly welcome in your environment. The profile can also be easily changed and added to as an employee sees fit.

3.  Ask questions/Get Feedback. WeVue’s platform allows users to ask questions and gather feedback quickly and easily. App admins at your organization can control access and whether you want this to be anonymous or open, also who can ask questions can also be controlled by company admins.

4. Culture Feed. WeVue has a timeline type function where most of your employees will spend time on the app, this is your ‘Cultural Feed’. As people share items, give shout-outs to each other, etc., all will be seen by the entire company here (similar to a FB timeline). Also, you can Broadcast announcements on the app, one-way communication by leadership, HR, marketing, etc.

5. Social share to a custom landing page. The app allows users to share information and you can have it go to a custom landing page, like maybe your career site!  This easily allows you to share your culture with perspective candidates and drive additional traffic to where you want it.

WeVue is an organizational culture app.  Designed for organizations who want to share and drive a strong sense of what and who they are as an organization. As companies grow quickly this is one of the first things that gets lost, and once it’s gone, it’s almost impossible to get back. This helps companies stay small, as they get big, and let’s big companies seem a bit smaller. WeVue is like having your own private social media site for your employees.

Check out WeVue. Easy quick demo. Fairly inexpensive for what you get and can build in terms of culture. I’m a huge believer in letting your employees be your brand advocates through sharing their stories at work, and WeVue makes this very easy.

How WeVue changed Logan’s career? from NiceGuy with a HeadFull of Ideas on Vimeo.

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.

Recruiting Secret #36

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Everyone wants to know the secret to great recruiting. Candidates want to know how to get into companies. Recruiters want to know each other’s secrets to finding great talent. No one seems to be sharing their secrets, but I will!

Recruiting Secret #36 – 

Most hires you will make as a recruiter will find you. You don’t find them.

The secret is to make it easy for them to find you!

There is still a prevailing idea in recruiting, especially on the corporate side, you should make it difficult for candidates to be able to get in touch with and find you. Great recruiters. The best recruiters in any industry, are easy to find.

Are you?

 

Should CEOs make 276 Times More Than You?

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Check out this chart from Business Insider:

Screen Shot 2016-08-15 at 3.28.08 PMBasically, this chart is showing you how much more your CEO makes than the average worker at your company, assuming you work for one of the 350 largest companies in the United States.

So, let’s put this into real numbers:

The average worker makes around:  $45,000.

That means the CEO makes: $12,420,000.

I think most people feel that disparity is too much. I put it in the context of professional athletes. Should LeBron James get $33,000,000 per year to play basketball for the Cleveland Cavaliers?

We tend to think LeBron shouldn’t get paid $33 Million per year, but at the same time were alright with it because well he wins games. But somehow we don’t believe Indra Nooyi, the CEO of PepsiCo, should earn $22,000,000 per year like she did last year. Why is that?

Oh wait, would you feel better if I put one of those old white guy CEOs compensation number up? Would that make it easier for you to hate?

I find it interesting that for most of the modern era (prior to 1980) CEOs made roughly 25 times more than the average worker. In our example above that would then look like this:

Average worker: $45,000

CEO: $1,125,000

Yeah, this still sucks, right?

So, what should the figure be? How much more should a CEO make than the average worker? Does 10 times seem right ($450,000)?

I’m a Moneyball guy. I have a hard time believing any CEO is truly worth 276 times more than an average worker, but if that’s what the market bears, more power to them! I’m also a Capitalist!

I do believe, though, that all of these organizations could fire their CEOs at 276 times pay, hire someone else at half that pay and they would have the same or better results across the board. 50% pay cut, same performance. So, why wouldn’t they do this?

Organizational dynamics are built to continue this behavior of over-paying. At some point around 1980, someone let the cat out of the bag and leaders have been pushing the envelope ever since! Think about how this all goes down. A leader goes to the board of directors and says, “Look we need better talent at the C-level to support me.” The board supports, raises get put in, this pushes up against the CEO.

Well, now we have compression, time to move the CEO up. The cycle continues, again, and again…. It becomes a leadership arms race! The board feels like they are in no win situation. If the company is doing well, of course, they vote yes. If the company is doing bad, well, we need better, so you get another yes vote.

No one is willing to just stop it. To say, you know what, ten times or twenty-five times, is plenty. We’ll find great talent at that amount. I’ve met great CEOs and awful CEOs of very large companies. All made outrageous money and their performance had very little to do with their compensation.

What do you think? How much more should a CEO get paid over the average worker?

Should Employers Be Looking for Lifetime Employees?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Student Loan Debt will end up being an Employer Problem

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Take a look at this chart:

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

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

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

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

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

How is it your problem? 

1. Debt causes stress.

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

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

4. This will soon become your biggest issue.

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

What should you do?

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

How did Monster Lose Out in the Job Board Wars?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

T3 – @NamelyHR – HR software for Humans

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This week on T3 I review the SMB HRIS technology Namely. Namely is a core HRIS system for growing and midsize organizations. Along with the core HR function Namely also does Payroll, Benefits, and Performance Management. You get a lot for a system originally designed to serve the SMB market, plus with their open API model, Namely easily integrates with other Saas software you use, like your ATS, background check technology, etc.

Namely was designed to be an HRIS system that your employees will use, not just HR. You’ll notice it has a social media-esque feel to it that will put your employees at ease when logging in and using the platform. One big differentiator for Namely is their integration with benefits brokers, and their ability to act as your broker as well. About 35% of Namely clients use them for their benefits, so online Open Enrollment is a given within the platform.

5 Things I really like about Namely:

1. Performance Management is a great addition to the core HRIS. Namely was built to be your core HRIS, but their performance management is really good. Create goals, cascade those down across departments and managers, track, review, etc. Plus, the system will auto-communicated out to managers and employees when goals are reached, progress, etc.

2. Organization Chart Management. This wasn’t something I was expecting from Namely and it’s not super robust, but to have this functionality in a core HRIS system for smaller organizations is really nice, and so many want this, especially those in fast-growing organizations.

3. Benefit Integration. It’s one thing to have a system that will work with your benefit’s broker, it’s another to have one that will actually do all the benefits as well! Namely works exceptionally well at managing your benefits because it’s set up to do this on its own if you choose. If you want to maintain your current broker, the system will work with them. One of the better interfaces for a core HRIS around this function.

4. Time card functionality and electronic signature. Again, for growing organizations these are must haves and Namely delivers.

5. Robust Reporting. Namely allows you to pull anything out of their system in customizable reporting but also builds most of you what you need including ACA reporting, payroll reporting, benefit plan summaries, etc. Easy to navigate and build what you need.

Namely is designed for small to medium sized organizations that don’t have huge HR teams. The platform is easy to use and is built for your employees to be able to navigate around and get what they need without a ton of help from HR.

I hesitate to call this an entry level HRIS system because it’s not.  Namely will fall into that category as an organizations ‘first’ HRIS, but they’ve definitely taken it up a notch and provide way more than most HRIS systems within this segment of the market.  The benefits integration alone is far superior to most on the market, and providing performance management in a core product really sets it apart within the industry.

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.

The Gift of Desperation 

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Things are going pretty well. Very okay. Smooth. I’ve got no complaints. Just keeping the train on the tracks. We’re running a well-oiled machine. Things are humming along.

The sound of average is something we’ve gotten so use to hearing that we actually don’t even hear it any longer.

The calmness that surrounds average is warm and cozy, like an oversized extra-soft sweatshirt on a cool fall day.

We come in, we do our jobs, we go home.  We sleep well at night. Well, we at least sleep.

I have feeling true greatness doesn’t happen without a bit of desperation.  Your ass is on fire. You wake up in the middle of the night and you don’t know why, but you do.

Desperation is a gift to move you forward, for those who can handle it. Many can’t. Desperation will push some over the edge to give up or do stupid things. For many, it’s the push they need to finally do the thing they’ve wanted to do but were afraid to do.

Most of us will never really feel desperation. That you only have two choices, go backwards or fight like mad, claw, scrape, crawl to move forward.

Many will never see desperation as a gift, because many will not make it. It’s only those who make it past desperation that come to see it as a gift. As the push, they needed to overcome that obstacle in front of them and come out the other side stronger. For these fortunate few, desperation is a gift.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Great Talent Supports Great Talent

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Too often leaders put up with a great talent who’s shitty to other employees. The belief is that because the employee is so talented we should be willing to put up with how they treat others. It happens all the time in organizations! All. The. Time.

Ichiro Suzuki is a very successful Major League Baseball player for the Seattle Mariners who just hit his 3,000 hit in the major leagues, that just adds to his thousand plus hits he had in the Japanese professional baseball league. All those hits make him arguably the greatest hitter of all time at the professional level of baseball.

ESPN did an article about Ichiro recently as he was coming very close to the 3,000 hit milestone in the MLB, a very rare feat. What most people don’t know is Ichiro almost left the MLB after only one season because his teammates treated him so badly:

“Suzuki explained later that in the middle of his career with the Mariners, when the team wasn’t playing well but he was an All-Star and Gold Glove winner, his teammates called him selfish and said that he cared only about individual accolades. After Griffey, Sweeney and Ibanez arrived, he says, they stood up for him and encouraged their teammates to worry about their own play first.”

It wasn’t until Seattle brought in other MLB All-Stars that Ichiro felt welcomed. Great talent, supports great talent. Okay, everyone on an MLB roster is talented, but even within those rosters, there are levels of talent. Ichiro is a hall of fame talent. Griffey is a hall of famer.

The point to all of this is your best talent should support the other best talent of your organization.  If you have great talent that isn’t supporting each other, you need to make a move. Great talent is talented if they don’t support the other talent in the organization. That might be the single most difficult thing for leaders to understand.

Your talent is wasted if you can’t find ways to lift up the other talent around you. Seattle was able to find talent that was willing to do that and Ichiro turned his talent into one of the greatest of all time, but he was also very close to just packing it in and going home.

I wonder how much talent walks out your door based on how they are being treated by others in your organization?