Employees don’t leave organizations, they leave…

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BOSSES! Right?! Right? Right…

For at least the past two decades, the foundation of employee engagement has been built on this one simple principle. Employees don’t leave organizations, they leave Bad Bosses.

So, if you want highly engaged employees just don’t have assholes for bosses. Super easy! Just hire and train great leaders and your employees will be engaged and productive and all will be right in the world.

Then along comes Harvard and their stupid studies:

“Good leadership doesn’t reduce employee turnover precisely because of good leadership. Supportive managers empower employees to take on challenging assignments with greater responsibilities, which sets employees up to be strong external job candidates. So employees quit for better opportunities elsewhere — better pay, more responsibility, and so on.”

Wait, what!? This is exactly what your CEO said she feared when you wanted to dump all of that money into leadership development. But you said, “If we don’t develop our leaders the people will leave as well!” So, what happened? We did so well at developing and empowering our leaders they pushed our best employees right out the door to other opportunities!

Ugh! This HR thing is hard. We think we’re doing the right thing for twenty years, then we find out we did it all wrong! Don’t fret, there’s some good news:

“There is a silver lining, though. Former employees with good bosses are what we call “happy quitters.” When the consultant company asked them about their feelings toward their former employer, their responses were overwhelmingly positive. Questions included Do you hold positive opinions about your former company? Would you refer employees to work for the company? and Do you see yourself as a potential boomerang employee? Good leadership, then, is an important tool for building goodwill with employees, which they are likely to retain as alumni, in turn becoming sources of valuable information, recommendations, and business opportunities later on.

The upside to losing well-led employees, however, comes with an important caveat. Our research finds that good leadership generates alumni goodwill only for those employees who experience good faith retention efforts when they quit. So managers should go to bat for their employees and counteroffer if they can. Our findings indicate that such retention efforts are critical for preserving the goodwill created by good leaders with employees, which can then be translated into a continuing relationship with them as alumni.”

What does this all mean?

You better get a heck of a lot better at Off-boarding! Off-what?  You know Onboarding but in reverse. Make employees feel really good about leaving you! Make them feel like they are valued and you don’t want to lose them and you’ll do anything to keep them. When they leave, they’ll be more likely to return or recommend others go work for you.

Most companies off-board like this:

Leaving employee: “I’m putting in my two weeks notice, I have this great opportunity to challenge myself and I have to give it a shot.”

HR and/or Hiring Manager: (while ripping their shirt) – “You are dead to us! Leave immediately. Don’t return to your desk, we already have security guards boxing up your crap!”

You laugh, but it’s mostly true. We suck at off-boarding, which is why most of us suck at alumni hiring. Fix that!

When Take Your Kid To Work Goes Too Far!

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If you haven’t heard by now, Chicago White Sox player Adam LaRoche decided to retire and walk away from a guaranteed $13 million dollars because the White Sox asked him to bring his kid to work a little less.  Yes, you read that correctly.

Apparently, LaRoche, who signed with the White Sox last year and made $12.5 million liked to bring his 13-year-old son to spring training with him. He asked the White Sox if it was alright if he brought his kid to spring training, and they said yes, believing the kid would come for some batting practice once in a while and hang out in the clubhouse. Little did they know, LaRoche actually had his kid with him 100% of the time he was at the facility!

A statement from Ken Williams, the President of the White Sox:

“There has been no policy change with regards to allowance of kids in the clubhouse, on the field, the back fields during spring training. This young man that we’re talking about, Drake, everyone loves this young man. In no way do I want this to be about him.

“I asked Adam, said, ‘Listen, our focus, our interest, our desire this year is to make sure we give ourselves every opportunity to focus on a daily basis on getting better. All I’m asking you to do with regard to bringing your kid to the ballpark is dial it back.’

“I don’t think he should be here 100 percent of the time – and he has been here 100 percent, every day, in the clubhouse. I said that I don’t even think he should be here 50 percent of the time. Figure it out, somewhere in between.”

So, the internet went crazy supporting Adam LaRoche on this with the #FamilyFirst hashtag and set the White Sox up as “evil” because they wouldn’t allow a player, that they are paying $13 million to, to have his kid at the workplace full time!

I get it, the internet is mostly stupid.

This is a family issue. Bob the electrician down at the GM plant. Guess what, he never gets to bring his kid to work, and Bob doesn’t think GM should allow him to bring his kid to work. Bob makes $50,000 a year. If Adam wanted to  spend more time with his kids, maybe he should choose a career that doesn’t put him on a the road 200 days a year.

I do have another idea, that no one is talking about.

Adam LaRoche made $12.5 Million dollars last year in his 12th MLB season. He hit .200, his worst year ever. This year the White Sox were going to have to pay him $13 million, and he’s not getting better.

Maybe Ken Williams was just doing some good old performance management! Hey, Adam, you’re sucking, maybe it’s time to leave the kid at home and start focusing on hitting the curve a little better. We are paying you way more than you’re worth at this point!  Knowing that telling him he can’t bring his kid to work, will potentially do one of two things – 1. he’ll retire and we don’t have to overpay for talent; or 2. he’ll actually get a wake-up call and start hitting. Either way, the White Sox win.

How do I know this is potentially true? Take the same scenario and use a different player, like Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers, arguably the top player in baseball. If Miggy wanted to bring his son to spring training, or he would retire, what do you think the Tigers would do? If you’re performing, you get perks. Miggy’s kid would be shagging balls in the outfield, I can tell you that!

Adam LaRoche isn’t a hero from walking away from $13 million dollars to spend time with his son. He’s already made $78.5 million in the last 12 years. He and his son can both retire. Adam wasn’t performing.  He is set financially. Leaving to spend time with his son was just a good excuse to end it because he couldn’t hit his weight any longer.

 

How is your office celebrating St. Patrick’s Day?

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First, do you even know what the hell St. Patrick’s Day is?  I’m guessing if you’re not Irish Catholic, you have no freaking idea! Here’s some knowledge:

“The revelry, of course, is all in the name of Saint Patrick, who was born in Britain but sold into slavery in Ireland as a child. He eventually escaped but after becoming deeply religious he decided to return to Ireland to spread the word of Christ. Legend has it Saint Patrick was responsible for making the shamrock synonymous with Ireland after using the three-leaf clover to demonstrate the Holy Trinity. He’s also been attributed with driving snakes out of Ireland.”

Okay, so now you can put into context why you wear green, pinch butts and drink green beer…

Originally, St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland was a religious holiday and people would go to church, and pubs would be closed. As the Irish came to America they used St. Patrick’s Day as a holiday to celebrate their heritage. Now, 34 million Americans claiming to have Irish roots celebrate each St. Patrick’s Day. Also, the 4.7 Million actual residents of Ireland celebrate as well.

It’s so American that we took a great holiday like St. Patrick’s Day and turned it into a fake holiday and an opportunity to sell crap! Kiss Me, I’m Irish!

How’s your office celebrating St. Patrick’s Day?

Since the holiday as turned into mainly a drinking holiday, my guess is most organizations struggle with how to really celebrate. I mean who doesn’t want a green beer when walking into the office at 8am, but it makes for a really long day, plus NCAA games begin at noon. Yep, that’s right, the first day of Basketball Christmas and St. Patrick’s Day begin on the same day in 2016. Ugh, I’m going to have a green tongue for a week!

My guess is most offices will be pretty cleared out by noon, today.  Basketball games, plus beer = half day PTO requests!

But, for the those folks who are staying around to keep business moving, enjoy the green Kool-Aid and green cookies in the breakroom that HR ordered. But, only two cookies please, last year we ran out.

The First Rule of Recruiting

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Sometimes we go so far into the weeds in recruiting we forget what is really important.

We have to have a brand!

We have to have an ATS! Or a new ATS!

We have to have a CRM! What the hell is a CRM!

Our job descriptions need to be better!

Our career site sucks! Don’t they all!?

We need to relaunch our employee referral program!

There are literally a million things you could focus on in recruiting and you still would have a list of crap you never even got to.

You know recruiting isn’t difficult. It’s not like we’re trying to launch the space shuttle. Recruiting is finding people for your organization. People are everywhere. We just need to talk them into coming to work for our organizations.

It’s the first rule of recruiting – Just let people know you’re hiring.

We make it so difficult when all we have to truly do is let people know we actually want to hire them. Do you have any idea how many people would really want to work for your organization, but they never know you are hiring or were hiring?

Recruiting is really only that. Just letting enough people know that you want them to work for you until you’ve reached the right people. It’s okay that you will reach some you don’t want. That’s part of the game.

To reach the people who you want, and who want you, you have to let a lot of people know you’re hiring.

Letting people know you’re hiring goes beyond your career site. It goes beyond job boards. It goes beyond employee referral programs. It’s a philosophy throughout your organization. It’s about an understanding that you want everyone to know that you’re hiring.

Most organizations don’t do this. It’s a combination of issues, but mostly it’s conceited belief that letting people know you’re hiring seems desperate. That we are too good of an organization to let everyone know we are hiring, because we don’t want everyone, we only want a few.

This is why most talent acquisition departments fail. Simple conceit.

Great recruiting isn’t conceited, great recruiting is about being humble enough to let people know you want them.

T3 – The Great Facebook Sourcing Hope

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About once a week I have this conversation with a fellow TA/Sourcing Pro:

TA/Sourcing Pro: “Ugh! I hate LinkedIn! If Facebook ever decided to put LinkedIn out of business they could do it overnight!”

Tim: “Yep.”

Okay, usually there’s all kinds of explanation and brainstorming around how we could ‘show’ Facebook how to do this, easily. But, you’ve already heard, or had, this conversation about a thousand times, so I won’t bore you with it again!

My plan is that Facebook does a LinkedIn type reset, but doesn’t screw it up like LinkedIn has. There is a true need for a ‘professional network’, but you can’t turn it into Job Board 2.0 like LI did. How does that help us TA and Sourcing pros? FB could pull this off. 2 billion profiles. They would have virtually everyone, and could attract back the college kids with the potential of company and job matching, by just working with college career placement offices, etc.  LinkedIn started doing this but walked away from it way too early.

FB then makes money off of company pages and postings. Plus, pay per click ads to very specialized groups of candidates that companies would easily pay to get in front of. I’m sure they’re a few other ideas they could make money on, without giving away everything like LI did.

Only about .02% of TA and Sourcing Pros are actually using Facebook to recruit.  None of those people are telling you how, because they’re making money on it, and don’t want you to know! Basically, it’s not how you think.  Almost every great sourcing product to come out has to do with IT sourcing.

It makes sense because that’s where all the cash is, so that’s where all the investment is. Facebook doesn’t play nice with others (let’s face it, they don’t have to), so you see virtually nothing coming out around Facebook sourcing. The reality is, though, you have the ability to Facebook source, by location, by a company name, by gender, etc., but you won’t do it because it means you have to do the heavy lifting.

What is heavy lifting mean? FB will get you about 80% there, but you have to go get the other 20%. There’s no easy ‘InMail’ to bail you out. You might have to search for an email, call into a company, etc. Heavy lifting…

Here’s a Facebook search engine (hat tip to Recruiting God – Steve Levy for sharing this):

https://inteltechniques.com/intel/osint/facebook.htm 

This isn’t the first and only one of these out there, but it’s a good one for sure. In fact, these types of FB search engines started showing up around the exact time FB launched Graph Search, then almost immediately took it down because it was actually too easy to search and find people! People complained FB listened (did you hear that LI?).

So, what’s the FB sourcing gold?  It’s low-end positions, not high-end. The high-end folks (IT, Engineers, etc.) figured out early that putting your title, etc. on FB wasn’t going to get you pimped constantly by recruiters and sourcers.  The lower skilled folks don’t care, because they don’t get non-stop job offers.

I know of a few recruiters making well over six figures, right now, only recruiting lower skilled and/or not your normal technical talent type pros on FB! Technicians, truck drivers, sales people, teachers, nurses, etc. Companies are struggling to find great talent at this level as well, and FB is a goldmine that virtually no one is sourcing.

Check out the search engine above. Connect with Steve Levy. He’s a great dude and one of the good guys in recruiting who is always willing to share his knowledge!

3 Ways to make your office more productive during March Madness!

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For those that know me, I’m a huge basketball fan.  Pro, college, AAU, high school, hell, if you really dig into my past you would probably find me hanging out at some playground breaking down the defense effort of a pickup game between grade school kids.  So, when March Madness time comes around each year I’m like many of your employees.  I’m trying to find the best ways to work and watch basketball, or at the very least stay up on my brackets and see who is getting upset!

With all the hype over the past few years about lost productivity, due to March Madness, in the workplace.  I felt it was my duty to provide HR Pros with some helpful tips and tricks to get your staff to highly productive during this time of year.  Here are my ideas:

1. Put up TVs throughout the office.  Let’s face it, you really only have one or two hoops junkies in the office, and those folks usually spend vacation time to ensure they don’t miss a minute.  Everyone else just wants to see scores and highlights.  They’re a casual fan.  They’re willing to work a perfectly normal day, and will probably be just a productive, if not more, with the TVs streaming all the games in the background.  Plus, if you get a close game or big upset, you’ll get some team excitement in the air.  This also stops most of your staff trying to stream the games on their desktops for the entire afternoon.

2. Call off work those afternoons.  Let’s face it, March Madness is pretty close to a national holiday as we will ever get.  Doesn’t matter if you’re female or male, young or old, what religion you are, we all love the drama and excitement of March Madness.  Just close the office.  Make a deal with your staff to reach certain goals and if they’re met, take them to the local watering hole yourself and have some fun with it.  Employees like to rally around a fun idea.  You don’t have to make everything fun, all the time, but once in a while, it helps to lift productivity.

3. Shut off all access.  Yep, you read that correctly. Have IT shut down all access to anything related to March Madness.  Threaten to fire any employee caught checking scores on their smartphone, or calling a friend to see how it’s going.  Fear!  Fear is a great short-term lifter of productivity.  Whether we like to admit it, or not, it’s true.  If you went out right now into your office and told the entire staff at the end of the day you’re firing the least productive person, you would see productivity shoot through the roof!  You would also see about half your staff, the half you want to keep, put in their notice over the next 4-6 weeks.

The reality is, most people will do business as usual.  While the CNNs of the world love to point to the millions of dollars American corporations lose during March Madness, it’s no different than so many things that can consume our thoughts in any given day.  I do think HR and leadership, each year, lose out on a great way to have fun and raise engagement during March Madness.  It’s something most of your staff has some interest in, and depending on your city and the schools your employees went to, it can get heightened pretty significantly.

For the record, I’m not picking Michigan State.  I want to with all my might, but I’m nervous that my bracket mojo would work the opposite, so I’ll pick someone else, and feel awesome when Sparty wins and I lose my bracket! Okay, well maybe I’ll pick them in a couple of my brackets!

Top Jobs in 2016? Hope you’re good at math!

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Glassdoor released their most recent top 25 paying jobs report in the U.S. and one thing was common in 24 out of the 25 jobs, STEM!That’s right in 24 out of the 25 top paying jobs in the U.S. you better have exceptional, high-level math skills, or be great at science, preferably both, if you don’t mind.

That’s right in 24 out of the 25 top paying jobs in the U.S. you better have exceptional, high-level math skills, or be great at science, preferably both, if you don’t mind!

Here’s a taste of the top 10:

1. Physician
Median Base Salary: $180,000

2. Lawyer
Median Base Salary: $144,500

3. Research & Development Manager
Median Base Salary: $142,120

4. Software Development Manager
Median Base Salary: $132,000

5. Pharmacy Manager
Median Base Salary: $130,000

6. Strategy Manager
Median Base Salary: $130,000

7. Software Architect
Median Base Salary: $128,250

8. Integrated Circuit Designer Engineer
Median Base Salary: $127,500

9. IT Manager
Median Base Salary: $120,000

10. Solutions Architect
Median Base Salary: $120,000

Some things that standout from the list:

– These salaries aren’t really the highest paying jobs in the U.S. We all know of people making way more than $180K.  So, I’m not sure how Glassdoor actually came up this list, besides maybe asking going down to a coffee shop and just asking some folks. Hell, I know at least three people at Glassdoor, myself, who are making more than $180K, and not working in any of these jobs!

– Most people think doctors make way more than $180K. Many do – surgeons for example. Anesthesiologists make way more than $180K. Most specialized medical docs make more than $180K. So, who makes $180K? Your family doc. The one who sees your snotty-faced kid. That’s why there is a shortage of family docs!

– Being a Lawyer is the lone hold out where you don’t have to know math and science and still get a good paying job on the list! Oh, and most sales jobs. We forget to tell kids that, a decent sales person can make more than almost all of these jobs.

So, what does this list tell you?  First, go take the football out of little Johnny’s hands and put a calculator in it! More kids will get money to go to college for their grades, then their athletic prowess. The University of Alabama will pay your kid to go to school for free for having a 32 on their ACT. That is probably easier then getting Nick Saben to come visit. I know, you still have to live in Alabama, but it’s a free education.

As Fast Company points out, you don’t really need to make all that money anyway. $70,000 is the limit you need to be happy, or at least that’s what I keep telling my wife! I don’t think she’s buying that nonsense either!

Who is responsible for the lack of good workers?

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It’s parents. First and foremost I blame parents. Parents are the number one reason you can’t find good workers because parents want their kids reach higher than they did. Thus, if Mom or Dad worked in a blue collar profession, they want their kids to look down on that work. It’s subtle. Most parents don’t come out and say “what I do is bad”, it’s more “I want you to be better than me”, by doing this, you’re telling your kids, what I do isn’t worthwhile.

It’s teachers.  It’s our job to prepare you for college! No, it’s not, it’s your job to help prepare them for life after high school. That doesn’t have to be college. When did we turn public education into college preparatory and not life preparatory? Public Education has gotten so bad that the only paths a kid has after high school are college, the military or prison.

It’s the government – oh there’s a popular one.  The government has subconsciously told kids that working with your hands isn’t worthwhile. How? They no longer give public education the funding that is needed to teach skilled and semi-skilled trades in schools. When I went to junior high and high school I took wood shop, metal shop, electrical shop, automotive repair, a cooking class, etc. I was told by my government, as part of my education, that these skills were important to society.

It’s the media. Besides “Dirty Jobs” which is played off as a goof reality show, what show makes you feel like working in a job that makes your hands dirty is a worthwhile and valued career in our society? None. Even if a manual labor type job is portrayed, it’s usually portrayed in a comedy sense of look how screwed up my life is for working this job. Our kids are blasted by the media constantly to only look up to people who work in white collar professions.

We all stopped valuing hard work. Dirty work. Difficult work. Unpretty work. Not socially acceptable work.

We are all to blame.

We need to start telling kids, little kids, it’s okay not to be a doctor or lawyer or banker. That being a plumber is a wonderful, fulfilling career. Being a line cook, creating someone’s meal, can be a really good job. Building some’s car is a noble profession.

Somewhere along the way, we stopped telling our kids that ‘working’ is a good thing, and started telling them, you need to go to college, because ‘working’ is bad. We have generations of kids being raised that think ‘working’ is bad. We should strive to get jobs where you don’t ‘work’. You should manage. You should lead. You should facilitate.

Not work, lord no. You might get your hands dirty. You might get a stain on your trousers. Someone might see you working! We are not a working-class family! Worst of all? You might actually like it! You might like fixing something. You might like building something. You might like creating something.

I miss a time when working was as valued as education.  When you could look up at your Mom and Dad and be proud of them for working at a job that brought them home dirty, but brought them home for dinner.

Does my black face make me look more diverse?

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I’m sitting at the conference room table. It’s surrounded by my peers, most of which are white, one other, besides me is black, sprinkle in a couple of females, welcome to corporate America. We’re here because the white folks want to talk about how diversity is important. The entire time this conversation is happening they just keep staring at me and my black face. I do believe they think diversity is important.

I agree, diversity is important. We need to do something about it at our organization.  But, I’m not who they think I am.

Yes, I’m black.  But, I’m not diverse. In fact, the color of my skin is the only diverse thing about me!

I grew up in an upper-middle-class suburb. Not an upper-middle-class black suburb. An upper-middle-class white suburb. So, most people would actually call this a rich suburb. I was classically trained as an opera singer. I didn’t play basketball. I was a great student. I work in a white collar profession. I eat at the Olive Garden with my wife and three kids. I drive a Toyota SUV, the big one.

I might be more ‘white’ than the other white people at this table, but I have a black face. Apparently, because of my black face, I should be chosen to ‘run’ diversity for the organization. Apparently, I understand the ‘struggle’.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still a black person living in America. The white female CEO of our organization walked past me on the first month on the job. I recognized her immediately and said a jolly, “Good Morning”. She said nothing and walked past me. Not an hour later she realized the black man she rudely walked past wasn’t some random black guy, but a mid-level executive in her organization, and she stopped by to give me an excuse and a jolly good morning back.  I know she wouldn’t have walked past a white peer of mine without a greeting.

So, my black skin does present a challenge, but it does not make me diverse.

I ask the group, “why not Tom?” Tom, you see grew up in the inner city. Blue collar environment, with a single mom. Tom walked past a GM plant every day on his way to school. Once in a while, he would the workers selling dime bags out of the trunk of their cars in the GM parking lot. Tom played basketball and went to school on a scholarship. It was his only chance to get out of his neighborhood. Tom’s friend network has more black faces than mine, by a lot!

Tom grew up poor. Grew up surrounded by black people, Hispanic people, Asian people, people on the fringes of society, people I didn’t grow up around. Tom saw things I only saw when I went to the movies, which my parents paid for. Tom went to Baptist church, not because he was close to Jesus, but because the black women would cook a hot meal each day for the kids in the neighborhood. Tom has lived a diverse life.

“Tom!? Tom can’t lead up diversity, he’s…”, they stop before stating the obvious, like somehow saying “he’s white” out loud will change the color of his face.

Tom is diverse. Tom actually is passionate about diversity.  The only thing Tom doesn’t have is my black face.

It’s decided, I’ll take on diversity. I’m better “suited” for it, they say.

(Before you lose your minds and wonder why a white guy wrote this, understand that this came from a friend of mine. A friend with a black face who doesn’t have this platform. He told me the story, I wrote it. It was a story that needed to be told. Diversity isn’t about color, yet most organizations still make it about color. It’s the sad state of diversity in organizations in America.) 

T3 – Recruiting tools from @Sourcecon!

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Sourcecon, one of the premier recruiting conferences on the planet, happened last week. I didn’t attend, but kept up on the action on twitter and on the Sourcecon site. Jeremy Roberts, the editor and director of Sourecon, does an excellent job over there, and I always find great content and ideas.  It’s not just for Sourcing! I mean sourcing is still part of recruiting I think.  I’m not sure, it’s all very confusing…

Anywho. Stacy Zapar did a presentation and shared some cheap/free tools she uses to help her source/recruit better and more effectively, and I wanted to share those because I think two of them are ones anyone in recruiting can take advantage of:

1. Email Hunter – is the easiest way to find professional email addresses. Give a domain name and get the list of all the emails related to it found on the internet. I can imagine a thousand ways to use this, but one of the best has to be raiding a competitor!  Can you imagine if you’re GM? All you have to do is put in ford.com and Bam! You have every address on the web of folks with a ford.com email address.

There’s a free version for a single user with limited searches, but you can also get a paid version which is still fairly inexpensive, and they have a Chrome extension as well.

2. YouCanBookMe – Which is a booking software that integrates with your Google or iCloud calendar. This makes getting candidate screens and phone interviews set up super easy.  You just send them a link and they pick what works for them in your calendar which you can personalize to what schedule you want to offer.  This makes the go-between dance a thing of the past!

Again, YouCanBookMe has a free version you can use by yourself, or you can pay a little and get some premium benefits.

These aren’t the normal big recruiting and HR software’s that I normally highlight, but these are two the ‘inside’ secret type of tools that real recruiters and sourcers are using each and every day to make their jobs easier.

I think so many recruiting pros get intimidated by Sourcecon.  You have people talking about stuff you can’t even comprehend. The reality is, at every conference you’re going to have your 1%ers, those folks who are totally geeked out by technology and the profession.  That’s cool, I love all of those folks. They are the ones leading the profession.  But you also have the other 99%ers. The real folks like Stacy, who will give you real tools and ideas that we all can use.

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.