Rerun – The #1 Cause of Bad Hires

Posted on by
1

It’s Spring Break in Michigan, so I’m going to step away from the daily grind and throw some Reruns at you! You guys remember Rerun, from What’s Happening? (look it up, kids!) So, enjoy the Reruns, they’re some of my favorites!

Originally ran May 2013 – 

A while back I interviewed a lady that would make a great recruiter. She was high energy, great on the phone, could source and an HR degree.  She applied for the job we had open for a recruiter and 100% positive she would have accepted the position if I would have offered it. I didn’t. 

She wasn’t a ‘fit’.  The job she truly wanted, her ‘dream’ job, was in straight HR, not recruiting.  She was willing to recruit – she really didn’t want to recruit.  We walked away from a terrific candidate.

Poor job fit is the #1 reason most people fail at a job.

Organizations spend so much time and resources ensuring they’re hiring the right skills, but most totally fail when it comes to organization and job fit.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s not easy to determine organizational fit.  Sure you can design an assessment, do peer interviewing, etc. But it always seems like a moving target, and it is.  Job fit also has multiple components:

1. The job you have open.

2. The company culture.

3. The job the candidate actually wants to do.

4. The job the candidate is willing to do and how good of an actor they are to prove to you that is the real job they want.

5. Your inability to see your perception of the candidate and their perception of themselves doesn’t align.

How many of you have ‘Poor Job Fit’ as a reason for termination on your exit interview form?

My guess is almost none.  Most managers and HR pros will list things like: performance, personality conflict, attitude, low skill set, personal reasons, schedule, etc.  We don’t want to use something like “Poor Job Fit” because what that says is “We suck at our jobs!”

The reality is – probably 75% of your terminations are because of poor job fit.  You hired someone with the skills you wanted, but the job you have doesn’t use or need most of those skills.  The job you have doesn’t meet the expectation you sold to the candidate.  The job you have isn’t really the job the person wants.

Most organizations would be farther off to hire by fit, than by skills. True statement.  HR pros hate to hear that – because it discounts a lot of what we do.  Job fit is the key to retention – not skills.  Find someone who wants to be a recruiter – and they probably

HR pros hate to hear that – because it discounts a lot of what we do.  Job fit is the key to retention – not skills.  Find someone who wants to be a recruiter – and they probably be a decent recruiter.  Find someone with great skills who doesn’t want to be a recruiter – and they’ll be a terrible recruiter. 

In almost every occupation where you don’t need professional certifications (doctor, lawyer, CPA, etc.) this holds true.  I know a great Accountant who never went to accounting school – better than anyone I’ve met you graduated from accounting school.  Some of the best teachers – never went to college to become a teacher – but they love teaching.

Do one thing for me the next time you interview a candidate for a job – ask them this one question:

“If you could have any job, in any location, what job would you select?  Why?” 

Their answer doesn’t have to be the job they’re interviewing for to be the ‘right’ answer.  Their answer should be in line with what you’re asking them to do – or you’re going to have a bad fit – and either you will eventually be terminating them, or they will eventually be resigning.

Rerun – I Love Hiring People Who Have Been Fired!

Posted on by
1

It’s Spring Break in Michigan, so I’m going to step away from the daily grind and throw some Reruns at you! You guys remember Rerun, from What’s Happening? (look it up, kids!) So, enjoy the Reruns, they’re some of my favorites!

Originally ran July 2013 – 

There are few truisms I know in HR.

1. As soon as you think you’ll never be surprised again by something dumb done by an employee – you’ll be surprised.

2. You’ll be asked every year in HR to reduce your budget.

3. Employees will always believe HR knows more than HR really does know.

4. HR vendors always say they’re giving you their ‘lowest’ price until you say ‘no’, then a magical new lower price will come up.

5. Many employees who get fired were at one time really good employees.

The last one is one I really love!  It is a simple fact of life that most people will at some point in their life be fired from a job.   Might be their fault, or not, either way it’s not uncommon.  Here’s what happens to most people when they get fired – it’s like the 5 stages of grieving : You’re shocked – even when you know it’s coming; you’re pissed – how could you do this to ‘me’; you’re sad – what am I going to do; you’re anxious – I’ve got to get something, now!; and you’re determined – I’ll show you.   It doesn’t happen in this exact path for every person – but for many the flow is about the same.

Here’s what happens to most people when they get fired – it’s like the 5 stages of grieving : You’re shocked – even when you know it’s coming; you’re pissed – how could you do this to ‘me’; you’re sad – what am I going to do; you’re anxious – I’ve got to get something, now!; and you’re determined – I’ll show you.   It doesn’t happen in this exact path for every person – but for many the flow is about the same.

What you find is that someone who has been fired from a job comes with this cool little chip on their shoulder when you hire them.  It’s this deep down fire to show you and everyone else they know – that the person who was fired, isn’t who they truly are – they are more than that person.  This motivation is great!  It’s a completely different motivation than you get when you hire an employee who is currently employed and doesn’t really need your job.  I want people with some ‘want’ in them – some hunger – maybe a little pissed off with a chip on their shoulder! This edge, and memory of being fired, can carry people to great performance for years!

It’s a completely different motivation than you get when you hire an employee who is currently employed and doesn’t really need your job.  I want people with some ‘want’ in them – some hunger – maybe a little pissed off with a chip on their shoulder! This edge, and memory of being fired, can carry people to great performance for years!

In our organizations, we fire so many people who use to be great, and for a number or reasons you now believe they are crap.  And for you, they truly might be performing like crap – but for me they might be willing to be great again!  We had a saying when I was in HR at Applebee’s while doing annual calibration of our teams –

“if you talk about someone for more than 10 minutes they turn into a piece of crap”. 

Doesn’t matter who – our best to our worst employee – the longer you talk about them, the worse you start to view them.  This happens because it’s in our nature to focus on their opportunities, not their strengths – so the longer you talk the more you talk about what they can’t do, not what they can do.

So, there you have it – send me your crap employees – I’ll love them!

Rerun – Your Going Away Party

Posted on by
Reply

It’s Spring Break in Michigan, so I’m going to step away from the daily grind and throw some Reruns at you! You guys remember Rerun, from What’s Happening? (look it up, kids!) So, enjoy the Reruns, they’re some of my favorites!

Originally ran January 2011 – I like to use a lot – of – dashes – in my writing in – early – 2011!

I think like everyone, I want to be a good leader.  I think like any leader, the definition of good is dependent on who is listening to your message, and what they take away from that message.  Leaders are constantly asked to walk a fine line – do what is right for the business and do what is right for our employees.

Most of you know, these two things don’t go in opposite directions but run parallel in the same direction (although many times, our employees don’t feel they are traveling in the same direction).  It’s not one or the other – business vs. employees – it’s both.  You need the health of both groups, one can’t live without the other – although – sometimes both sides think that one can live without the other.

In my 20 years of professional background, I think what I’ve learned from watching both good and bad leaders is that your ability to walk that fine line successfully – determines your fate.

It’s a very small margin for error.   You must be fair, consistent and above all communicate in an upfront, transparent way when you can.   Before I was put into a leader position – I didn’t get this fine line.  I would be frustrated with my leaders – why didn’t they support us more, why did they seemingly always support the business?  I vowed, when I was a leader, I’d be that person they didn’t have the courage to be.

It’s funny how careers have a way of giving you what you ask for!

The best HR leader I ever worked for gave me some advice, and frequently I reach back for it.  He said,

“Tim, employees will never throw you a party when you take something away.  But if it is the right thing to do, then you have to do it.  Because they will throw you a going away party when you get fired for not doing the right thing.” 

He wanted to know if I wanted to be the kind of leader that employees wanted to throw a party for or a kind of leader that didn’t want employees to throw a party for.

I think, I can do without the party.

Rerun – HR’s Guide to White People

Posted on by
1

It’s Spring Break in Michigan, so I’m going to step away from the daily grind and throw some Reruns at you! You guys remember Rerun, from What’s Happening? (look it up, kids!) So, enjoy the Reruns, they’re some of my favorites!

Originally ran December 2011 – People find this funny, it still gets high traffic. I’m able to write a guide about white people. If I did the exact same thing but did a guide (for humor purposes) about Black people, or Gay people, or Asian people, I would be labeled a racist. That was my point when I wrote this in 2011, not many people got that.

I had a conversation this past week with an author looking for a quote from me on some diversity topics, and since I’m in HR, well, of course, I’m finely suited to talk diversity.  Here’s what I found funny, though, about the whole experience – I found myself thinking less about coming up with some profound wisdom to share with the masses and more about making sure I don’t come across like some Grand Master of the KKK.  This is when it hit me – HR doesn’t get White People!  You know – guys like me – white – male – 40ish; I’m like a Purple Squirrel in HR!  I mean in HR we are all about diversity. Diversity is what we do, so we live it, we hire it, we are IT!

But, I get it.  I’m fine walking this lonely road within HR and being a white male.  It’s what HR is all about, right?  Diversity!  And what says Diversity more than a white male 40ish short dude, in HR – I know crazy right!?  It’s like your mom in IT pumping out JAVA code – it just doesn’t fit.  So, as usual, I’m here to help – so I give to you this holiday season my first gift:

HR’s Guide To White People:

1. Passive-Aggressive:  It’s critical that you understand that white people are passive-aggressive.  We like to get our way, but we don’t want to get our hands dirty.  We aren’t going to get up-all-in-your face, we will subtly torture you until you do it our way.

2. Throwing Ourselves On The Sword:  White people like to feel bad, we love tragedy – but in a good way – well the best way you can take a tragedy!  It makes us feel good inside knowing it’s going to be bad, and might get worse.  It allows us to complain and have lower expectations.

3. We Want To Be Hip:  White people desperately want to be hip, but we can’t figure out that whole – Nigga v. Nigger thing – so we give up – see points 1 and 2 above.  We listen to hip-hop and rap, but only by ourselves, and we label it “urban” on our iPod lists so not to offend.

4. We like to buy really expensive cheap crap if it helps animals or kids: Stop it, don’t judge – but I would definitely step over 3 homeless people to get a new pair of Tom’s! But not four homeless people, I have emotional limits and short legs. Your welcome poor kid who just got a new pair of shoes – that makes me feel so good inside!

5.  Snow Sports: White people like snow sports. You don’t have to be real athletic, and you need a bunch of money to do it – so it fits us pretty well.  Stop having conventions in warm places – how about a freaking convention in Breckenridge or Vail every once in a while, you racist convention planners!

6. Management: White people don’t really like management – don’t get me wrong – we want to be management, just so we are clear.  We just don’t want somebody managing us.

7. Leadership: Yes, this is different than management. Let’s face it, white people love to cheer-lead and nothing says cheerleader, motivation and Tony Robbins like Leadership!  Give me a 6 set series of DVD’s and a book on tape and get out of my way!

8. Diversity: See no. 3, somehow we think that supporting diversity will get us a best friend who is black, Hispanic or Asian – thus make us so much more hipper than those white people who are too scared to speak to non-white people.

9. Awareness: White people love to be Aware!  Aware of your feelings, aware of the situation in north Africa, aware of just about anything – it makes us feel important.

10. Being An Expert on YOUR culture: Since white people aren’t completely thrilled about their own culture, we love being an expert about YOUR culture.  We will travel to your country, we will learn your language, we will take on your religion. It helps cleanse our soul for past digressions.

Bonus Guide to White People likes: Coffee, Organic Food, Gifted Children, Hating Their Parents, Wine, Microbrews, Farmer’s Markets, 80s Nights and Mos Def.

Use these insights wisely to create an environment your white people will feel comfortable and welcomed in.  Now I’m off to listen to PBS and drink an $8 bottle of water.

 

Rerun – The 11 Rules for Hugging at Work

Posted on by
Reply

It’s Spring Break in Michigan, so I’m going to step away from the daily grind and throw some Reruns at you! You guys remember Rerun, from What’s Happening? (look it up, kids!) So, enjoy the Reruns, they’re some of my favorites!

Originally ran February 2014 – 

Hello. My name is Tim Sackett, and I’m a hugger.   Being a hugger can make for some awkward moments – what if the other person isn’t expecting a, or doesn’t want to, hug and you’re coming in arms-wide-open!?

Fast Company has an article recently titled: To Hug Or Not To Hug At Work? by Drake Baer, that delved into this subject.  Here’s a piece from the article:

“the uncomfortable feeling you get when you realize that your concept of your relationship with someone else doesn’t match their concept. The intensity of awkwardness roughly corresponds to the magnitude of difference in relationship concepts.”

I consider myself to have a number of roles: Husband, Dad, Coach, Boss, Friend, Coworker, etc.  In each of those roles I’ve hugged and will continue to hug.  Sometimes, though rarely, I’ll find someone who isn’t a hugger.  The first time I ever met Kris Dunn face-to-face, we’ve had known each other and talked frequently by phone for a year, at the HR Tech Conference – he was coming out of a session, I recognized him, he recognized me, and I went full ‘bro-hug’ (sideways handshake, other arm hug-back slap combo) on him, and I’m pretty sure he was caught off guard – but played along.  Kris is a closet hugger.

Kris is a closet hugger.  Jason Seiden, he’s a hugger.  So are Laurie Ruettimann and Dawn Burke.  I find Southern folks are huggers, more than Northern.  Western more than Eastern.  Canadians more than Americans.  Men feel much more comfortable hugging women than other men. Women will hug just about anything – coworkers, babies, puppies, old people, friends, people they don’t even like, etc.

I thought it was about time we had some hugging rules for the office, so here goes:

The Hugging Rules

1. Don’t Hug those you supervise. (The caveats: You can hug a subordinate if: it’s being supportive in a non-creepy way (major family or personal loss – sideways, kind of arm around the shoulder, you care about them hug);  it’s at a wedding and you are congratulating them; it’s a hug for a professional win (promotion, giant sale, big project completion, etc.) and it’s with a group, not alone in your office with the lights off; you would feel comfortable with your spouse standing next you and watching that specific hug.)

2. Hug your external customers or clients when they initiate hugging sequence.  (The caveats: Don’t hug if: it is required to get business – that’s not hugging, that harassment. Don’t let hugs last more than a second or two, or it gets creepy; Don’t mention the hug afterward, that makes you seem creepy!)

3. Don’t Hug the office person you’re having an affair with in the office.  (no explanation needed)

4. Hug peers, not just every day. (It’s alright to hug, but you don’t need to do it every day for people you see every day. Save some up and make it special!)

5. When you Hug, hug for real. (Nothing worse than the ‘fake hug’!  A fake hug is worse than a non-Hug.)

6. Don’t whisper – ‘You smell good’ – when hugging someone professionally. (That’s creepy – in fact don’t whisper anything while hugging!)

7. Don’t close your eyes while hugging professionally.  (That’s weird and a bit stalkerish)

8.  It is alright to announce a Hug is coming. (Some people will appreciate a – ‘Hey! Come here I’m giving you a hug – it’s been a long time!’)

9. It’s never alright to Hug from behind.  (Creepier!)

10.  Never Hug in the restroom. (Make for awkward moment when other employees walk in and see that.)

11.  If you’re questioning yourself whether it will be alright to Hug someone professionally – that is your cue that it probably isn’t.

 Do you have any hugging rules for the office?

Reruns – Beautiful Things Don’t Ask For Attention

Posted on by
Reply

It’s Spring Break in Michigan, so I’m going to step away from the daily grind and throw some Reruns at you! You guys remember Rerun, from What’s Happening? (look it up, kids!) So, enjoy the Reruns, they’re some of my favorites!

Originally ran January 2013 – 

Over the holidays, I got a chance to see the movie The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.

Sean Penn plays freelance professional photographer Sean O’Connell.  Walter Mitty is played by Ben Stiller.  At one point Walter is searching for Sean to get an important negative and he finds Sean in some distant mountains, overseas, trying to capture a photo of a wild snow leopard.  Sean says this line when explaining to Walter why he goes to such lengths to get a photo:

“Beautiful things don’t ask for attention.”

In context or out, it’s a hugely profound line.  Sean isn’t necessarily speaking to the snow leopards outward beauty but saying something truly beautiful, inside and out, doesn’t ask for attention, nor necessarily want attention.  Each of us defines beauty differently, so this statement takes on a different meaning for all of us.

I love this, I’ll leave it at that.

Reruns – Top Candidate Lies!

Posted on by
1

It’s Spring Break in Michigan, so I’m going to step away from the daily grind and throw some Reruns at you! You guys remember Rerun, from What’s Happening? (look it up, kids!) So, enjoy the Reruns, they’re some of my favorites!

Originally ran July 2013 – 

Every Monday morning I have a meeting with my recruiting team – it’s a great way to kick off the week – we share what we are working on, we talk about problems we are having on specific searches so the team can share ideas and tips, maybe even a possible candidate they know of, etc.  We also share stories!  Monday mornings are great for sharing recruiter stories – horrible interviews, funny excuses candidates have, negotiating nightmares – you name it, we talk about it!

I was reminded this week how bad of liars candidates can be – we get a lot of candidate lying stories in Monday morning meetings!  So, as a shout out to my Recruiters – and all recruiters – I wanted to put together a list of the Top Candidate Lies.  When I started thinking about all the lies, I found I could break it down by category – so here goes – hit me in the comments if you have a favorite that you get – or think of one I missed:

The Education Lies

– “I have all the credits, I just didn’t graduate.”

– “I did all the classes, I just need to pay the fees to graduate.” (so you spent 4+ years going to school, got done, but that last couple of hundred dollars stopped you from graduating…)

– “I graduated from ‘State U’, but it was a long time ago, I’m not sure why they can’t verify my degree.”

– “I had a 3.0 GPA in my ‘core’ classes, but a 1.9 GPA overall…”

– “Well, it was an Engineering/Business degree.”

The Background Check Lies

– “No, I’m not on drugs.” Then fails drug screen. “Oh, you meant Marijuana as a drug…” 

– “She told me she was 18.”

– “They told me in court that never would be on my file, so I didn’t think I needed to tell you.”

–  “No, I don’t have a felony.” (Oh, that felony! But that was in Indiana…)

The Experience Lies

– “When you said Java, I thought you meant experience making coffee.”

– “I was a part of the ‘leadership’ team that was responsible for that implementation.” (So, basically you knew of a project that happened while you were working there…)

The No-Show Interview Lies

– “My car broke down.” (Either through some fantastic wrinkle in space, or gigantic amount of lying, candidates have more car trouble per capita than anyone else ever in the world who has driven a car)

– “I couldn’t find the location.” (So, your answer to this dilemma was to turn around and go home and not call and let us know you got lost?)

– “My son/daughter got sick, so I can’t make it.” (Again – crazy coincidences that happen with candidates and sick kids…)

The Termination Lies

– “It was a mutual decision that I left.” (“So, you’ll ‘mutually’ decided that you would no longer have a job?”, is the question I always ask after this statement! Candidates – this statement sounds as stupid as it reads.)

– “I (or any family member) was in a bad accident and in the hospital, so they fired me for not showing up to work.” (No they didn’t – there are some bad companies out there, but no company does this.)

– “I play on a softball team and after games we go out and have a couple drinks. The next morning my boss smelled alcohol and fired me for drinking on the job.” (This was a true lie I got from an employee – it started out as me just giving him a written warning – until I went lunch, not joking – 10 minutes later at the Chili’s down the street from the office, and there he was belly up to the bar drinking a beer…upon cleaning out his desk we found a half a fifth of vodka.)

Here’s my take on candidate lies – candidates continue to lie, because Talent/HR Pros don’t call them out on it.  We (HR) also perpetuate this problem by hiring the folks who give you the crappy lie, but don’t hire the folks who come clean and tell you the truth.

Check out my follow up to this post: Top Recruiter Lies!

T3 – @RecruiteeHR

Posted on by
1

This week on T3 I take a look at the recruiting platform, Recruitee.  Recruitee is an all in one ATS, recruitment automation, career site builder, and employment branding platform for the SMB market, with a very intuitive interface that follows about 99% of every recruitment pipeline out there.

Recruitee allows you to build your own career site, easily, and it doesn’t look like something your twelve-year-old put together from a template at a free website builder company.  Everyone tells you doing this is easy, then you pull your hair out and call Todd from IT to bail you out. This really is easy to do and you won’t need Todd.

Recruitee also allows you to build your applicant process by just dragging and dropping the steps in your process to match the needs of your organization. Plus, you’ll move candidates through the process with the same drag and drop ease. It’s one of the only platforms for the SMB market that I’ve seen that allows you to manage so much, all in one place. There are a ton of ATS options for the SMB market, but very few that allow you to build and manage your employment brand by yourself!

5 Things I really liked about Recruitee:

  1. Sourcing Plug-in Extension makes it super easy to import candidates into the system while you’re sourcing, plus the extension will also give you the email address (if it can be found) for those candidates you are sourcing.
  2. Job Promotion to both free and premium sites through the system. Easy job push with one click. Plus, you have the option to push it to paid sites for a discounted fee from what you could probably get on your own, for most SMBs.
  3. Career Site Editor. Most SMBs have to get in line behind everyone else to ever make a change on their career site. Recruitee puts this power directly in your hands, and you can now make changes on a daily, hourly basis if you wanted. For fast moving SMBs this is huge!
  4. CRM functionality that allows you to build talent pools and keep connected with them. Great functionality for a product that caters to this size market.
  5. It’s really about as idiot-proof of a recruiting platform as you’ll find on the market for SMB. This is important because you’re usually talking about a 1 or 2 person shop in small companies and these people have to wear all the hats! That means they need a platform that can do a lot, but doesn’t break easily.

Very impressive small market recruiting platform. I continue to be amazed at what the SMB market has access to in talent acquisition technology. Recruitee gives you so much for a rather small price. Well worth a demo if you’re in that space and looking to add or expand your recruiting technology.

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

The Employment Branding Arms Race!

Posted on by
6

Here’s why HR and Talent Acquisition is NOT like Marketing.

This is marketing –

Nike, Addidas, Under Armour, etc. all fight for market share.  Nike signs Lebron, KD and Kobi. Under Armour signs Steph Curry. Addidas gets D Rose and Wiggins. All of the shoe companies are trying to sign the top sports talent to shoe deals, so you’ll go out and drop $200 a pair for your kid to run around and act like they’re the next Steph Curry.

The ‘brand’ of the shoe you kid is wearing, that you are wearing, matters. It matters to them, it matters to you.  I know it matters because the shoe game is a $63 billion industry. Billion!  You care about what you put on your feet. Your kids really care! Accept my 12-year old who didn’t know who Kevin Durant was when I bought him a pair of KD’s earlier this year. See if he get’s another pair!

The shoe companies spend billions of dollars to create a brand that you want to be a part of, so, you’ll spend even more billions to buy their shoes made by 12-year-olds in China.

This is HR and Talent Acquisition –

We are spending more and more of our organization’s resources to create employment brands.  We are doing this because we need to let ‘talent’ know we are the best option for them to come and work. If we don’t play the game, other employers will beat us to the best talent.  Employment branding then becomes a strategic imperative to our organizations.

The one major difference is, we are only selling an idea.  The shoe companies are selling a product (and an idea that you’re cool if you wear our product!). We, HR and TA, are not selling a product that makes our organizations money. You have an actual marketing department that is doing that. So, in effect, you are creating something, that really has no value in the broader picture of your organization.

That probably doesn’t feel good, right there, for those who are spending most of their life working on and worrying about their organization’s “employment brand”.  You want to argue with me on this. I get it.

The reality is, there are only a handful of true employment brands that anyone really cares about or understands. You can name them off the top of your head: Apple. Facebook. Microsoft. GE (and only because they’re dropping millions right now on this). Enterprise Rent-A-Car (I would argue is the first and best at actually doing this organically, by hiring former NCAA athletes that didn’t go pro). Give me other national employment brands?

The reality is people have no idea what it’s like to work at GM. Or Oracle. Or Walmart. Or IBM. Or FedEx. Or PepsiCo.

We know of them because of their ‘brand’, not their employment brand. Pepsi could spend zero dollars on employment branding, and people would still have a positive connotation of their employment brand because they love their product brand. Conversely, WalMart could spend a billion dollars on employment branding, be a thousand times better to work for than Pepsi, and people wouldn’t buy it. Actually, they probably would, we’re all suckers for believing what the TV tells us.

So, this arms race of employment branding all seems a bit silly.

If every organization is out their ‘building’ their employment brand, the noise gets raised up all at the same time. The only ones who truly have an advantage are the ones who were out first, before the noise got so loud or the ones with the most money who can buy bigger speakers!

The noise is already deafening, and candidates have already stopped listening.

So, what can you do, if you’re one of those employers who is a good company, but people really have no idea who you are and what you do, and what kind of work environment you have? How do you break through the noise?

I believe you need to define what audience you really need to attract and you need to go after them with a sniper rifle. Not louder. Not with a shotgun. Not bigger. Not more money. Get very narrow, and pick off individuals you truly want.

You don’t need to make your message bigger and louder, you need to sneak around the crowd and pull people out of the fray. Put a hood over their head. Throw them into the van and take them back to headquarters. Well, so to speak.

In an arms race where you can’t afford nukes, you need to take the opposite approach and lay down your weapons. Many times the silent protest will get you what you’re looking for.

The Key to Handling High Maintenance Employees Like a Pro

Posted on by
3

Do you know the one piece of HR technology that hasn’t been created, yet? The Diva Detector!*

Wouldn’t that be nice? “Hey, Mr. or Ms. Candidate, please look into the DD 2.0 and don’t blink….Yeah, looks like you’re a straight-up diva, and sorry, but we’re fully loaded up on those at the moment. Please feel free to test again in 30 days. If your diva levels come down to just a know-it-all, you’ll be reconsidered!”

We tend to hire high maintenance employees because they’re very good at hiding their diva-ness during the interview process. Sometimes they even hide it through the probationary period of their employment. Those are the really hard-to-handle ones because they know they’re divas and hide it long enough to make your life difficult.

The question is, what do you do once you have a high maintenance employee?

I’ve had to deal with this in every single HR stop of my entire career, usually with a line out the door waiting to one-up each other on who has the biggest diva flag.

The thing about high maintenance employees is they usually want more attention than a normal employee. It’s this need for attention that drives you nuts, their manager nuts and all the other employees around them.  The key is getting them to focus on what the organization needs from them, not what they need from the organization. So, how do you do that?

Well, usually, high maintenance employees become a problem because their direct supervisor doesn’t stop this issue immediately when it comes to light. But, this is common, especially with new hiring managers, so it’s critical to work with them and help them become better managers.

High maintenance employees are at their best when they can divide you and the hiring manager. You can’t allow this to happen. You have to make a plan with the hiring manager and stick to it. The best way to box in a high maintenance employee is to never allow them to play two parties against each other. “Well,” they might say, “my boss said I could lead, then Jenny just took over, and I’m the one…”

You see where this is going!

As soon as this starts, you just need to say one thing, ” I’m going to call in your boss and Jenny so we can all talk.” To which they’ll probably say: “You don’t need to do that. You’re in HR! I thought this was confidential!”  (I love that one, by the way. I’m not a lawyer, I’m an HR leader, there’s a big difference.)

My reply to this, delivered in very calm, even-keeled manner is, “I can see this is very important to you, so I don’t want anything to get misinterpreted, it’s best that we get all of us together and get on the same page.”

High-maintenance employees hate to be on the same page because they get their power from the lack of communication within organizations. So the best way to limit their impact is to get everyone in the same room and nip the issue in the bud before it gets way out of hand.

(*Remember how I mentioned how great a Diva Detector would be? This isn’t exactly that…but Jellyvision’s unique recruiting process is a pretty close second. Check out how they weed out divas and slackers right here. It’s good stuff.)