It’s Okay to Just do HR

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If you’re highly active in HR and Talent Acquisition in the social space (read: blogs, sites, pod/video casts, webinars, conferences, Facebook, Twitter, etc.), you might be caught up in this mindset that what you’re doing is not what you should be doing.

You’re being told what you should be focusing on by idiots like me, and thousands of others, most of whom don’t even work in HR or Talent Acquisition at this moment.  That’s not a bad thing, some are brilliant and took their brilliance to the consulting/analyst/vendor side of the fence because the money was better, or the balance was better, or both.  This isn’t a consultant vs. practitioner post.

This is a post to remind you that it’s alright if you just put your head down and do actual HR and Recruiting work for a while.

That it’s okay not to be instituting the next best practice or innovation.

That it’s okay not to be focusing on recreating HR and Talent Acquisition in your organization.

Sometimes we just need to keep the train running down the tracks.  Allow ourselves to catch out breath. Get and build a strong team around us, and get ready for big things in the future.  In the mean time, we just do what we do.

We make sure our employees are doing alright.  Is there anything we can do to help them be better?

We make sure our employees get paid correctly and benefit card works when they show up at the doctor.

We make sure to kick managers in the shin, under the table, when they’re being idiots to their teams.

We make sure new employees have the tools they need when the show up on their first day, and they feel welcomed.

We give bad employees the gift of finding a job they will truly love, by letting them find that job on their own time.

Sometimes when I’m writing I forget what it’s like to have a million priorities in your day, and knowing you won’t get to half of them.  That’s the daily grind in HR and Talent Acquisition.  So, I write about how you should do this or do that, how you should be all innovative and shit, but I get that many days (sometimes weeks and months!) you just need to do the basics.

I’ve been there.  I struggled to just do the basics many days.  When thinking of being the best and innovating seemed so far away from reality that you felt like giving up.

That’s when I would tell myself, “Today, I’m just going to do HR”.  Focus on what I’m good at. Focus on what I can control.  Make it to the next day, where just maybe, that day would allow me to get better.

It’s okay for you to just do HR today!

 

What Happen When Everyone Thinks They’re An Outlier?

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My friend, Laurie Ruettimann, made a comment to me the other day, in regards to HR and Talent Blogging to the affect of, “everyone thinks they’re an outlier, Tim.”

She’s right.

It’s partly that people who blog, like me, are fairly high the narcissism scale.  We tend to believe that what we say and how we say are different than what others say and how they would say it.  It’s not, but that’s how we think.  Hold up.  Let me stop using “we”, because I’m quite certain this nice little HR and Talent blogging community hasn’t chosen me to speak!

I tend to believe anyone could say what I say if they decided they wanted to.  They just decide they would rather read my opinion, than go out, half-crazed and share their opinion on everything in the industry.

She is also very wrong.

There are very few Outliers in the HR and Talent blogging community. So, this point is mostly irrelevant. Just because someone thinks they’re the Pope doesn’t make them the Pope. It makes them crazy.

Outliers in blogging aren’t just people saying things first, or differently.  They are people who are saying things of interest.  They are helping to change the way the profession works.

I take a look at the work of Glen Cathey does and say, holy shit, I need to get better! He’s an Outlier.  I take a look at how Kris Dunn explains performance management in a real context to real HR pros, that I can grasp, that I can take back to my hiring managers and make real change without having a PhD. He’s an Outlier. I take a look at how Laurie challenges how I deeply think about a subject, and sways my opinion to be more open about how others think. She’s an Outlier.

The concept is when everyone believes they’re an outlier, no one is an outlier.  I don’t buy that, because I know the truth above. There are true Outliers.  There are a few brilliant people who shape opinion and slowing get an industry to move in other directions.

So, guess what?  You’re not an Outlier.  You think you are, but you’re not.  Sorry. Buy a helmet, life sucks sometimes.

 

THE TOP 20 BRANDED HR & TALENT PROS: Meet Steve Browne of LaRosa’s Inc.

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Let’s face it – Fearful of the spotlight and conservative to a fault, HR pros generally aren’t the best examples to look towards when it comes to professional branding. Kris Dunn (Kinetix RPO, The HR Capitalist) and Tim Sackett (HRU Technical Resources, TimSackett.com) think that needs to change.  That’s why they created this series – The Top 20 Branded HR Pros(sponsored by the team at Glassdoor).

KD and Tim searched the globe for HR Pros who used the tools at their disposal (writing, speaking, social and more) to brand themselves in the HR space, but limited the results to actual practitioners in the areas of HR, Recruiting and Talent Management.  No consultants, no vendors. They found out well-branded HR pros who are actual practitioners are hard to find.  

Tim and KD are running the Top 20 they found here on the HR Capitalist and at TimSackett.com.  No rankings, just inclusion in the list and some notes on why.  There are at least 20 well-branded HR Pros in the world.  These are their stories. 

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I can’t remember the exact time and place I met Steve Browne in person but I think it was at the Ohio State SHRM Conference.  Steve stands about a foot taller than me, so I saw him way before he saw me!  What instantly struck me about Steve is he has an infectious personality and energy that people are drawn to in a very good way.

Steve Browne is the Executive Director of HR for LaRosa’s Inc. out of Cincinnati, OH.  LaRosa’s is a restaurant chain with about 1500 employees and Steve is responsible for running their HR team.  If you have ever worked in HR in the restaurant and/or retail industry you know Steve is knee deep in the trenches of real HR work on a daily basis! This makes his ability to brand himself and his organization so remarkable.

Here is Steve’s playing card:

Glassdoor Top 20 - Steve Browne

 

Steve is also super involved with his volunteer work at the local, state and national level with SHRM.  Steve has been on various boards for SHRM in the past, but he also is currently running for SHRM’s  Executive Board, which is a very high honor!  Steve also is a frequent speaker on the SHRM circuit, statewide and nationally.

On the writing side of the business Steve is part of CareerBuilder’s Talent Advisors, where he gets to share his real-life HR strategies with a huge audience. Steve also is hugely creative with a weekly HR inspired song he sends out to a growing following. Each week Steve takes a popular song and changes the lyrics to be HR and Talent inspired! He’s been doing this for years, and it’s awesome to see this creativity coming from an HR guy!

Twitter was built for people like Steve.  Over 35,000 tweets and going!  Steve has a huge twitter following where he gets to share all of the latest and greatest HR and Talent content with his followers. Steve has never met a tweet he didn’t like!  Instagram on the other hand might be more of a challenge, but you can’t count Steve out of conquering this medium as well.

He’s an HR’s Pro, Pro.  In the dictionary next to HR Pro there should be a picture of Steve Browne!  As good of an HR guy, he might be a better person. Active in Scouting (his son just received his Eagle Scout rank) and always willing to help whomever might need it.  Make sure you connect with Steve, you’ll be better for it!  I’m super excited Glassdoor choose to recognize Steve for his professional efforts. Congratulations Steve!

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The Top 20 Branded HR Pros is brought to you by Glassdoor, who invites you to attend the Annual Glassdoor Employer Branding Summit on September 25th, where a stellar speaker lineup of industry experts and thought leaders exploring the intersection of employer branding and talent acquisition, the candidate experience and employee engagement. 

Tickets are sold out, but wait!  You can attend the livestream online featuring studio coverage with Kris Dunn and Tim Sackett by registering here (click to register).  Fun and games are sure to be a part of that coverage.

 

Blame the Search Firm for Your Crappy Hires

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It’s become common practice in high level NCAA Division Athletics to use retained search firms to hire Athletic Directors and Coaches.  Recently, the University of Minnesota Athletic Director resigned, before UM could terminate him for inappropriate activity, after being on the job for two years.  How did the University of Minnesota respond to this termination?  Well, they blamed the original search firm of course!

Both the University of Minnesota Twin Cities and UMD (each part of the state’s public University of Minnesota system) hired Atlanta-based Parker Executive Search to find athletic directors.

It’s easy to see why they chose Parker, as the firm has been profiled by ESPN as one of the most influential search firms in college athletics and has had Indiana, Kentucky, Notre Dame, Oregon and Northwestern as clients.

Parker’s searches in Minnesota resulted in the 2012 hiring of Teague, who resigned last week while facing reports of sexually harassing employees. It also brought Athletics Director Josh Berlo to UMD, where he is facing criticism for firing five-time national champion women’s hockey coach Shannon Miller.

One Gophers booster told the Pioneer Press he won’t give any more money to the university if it uses any search firm again.

How much blame should the search firm get for Teague’s hiring? That’s a question likely to come up when the University of Minnesota Twin Cities conducts an outside investigation into the case.

I get it.  If I paid $125K for a company to do a retained search, I would hope they would let me in on every single thing in the candidates background, and even stuff that wasn’t in his background but they found anyway! It seems like the search firm, in this case, missed that Teague, Minnesota’s ex-Athletic Director, has previous issues related to harassment.

I doubt highly they hid this information. One placement fee, no matter how big, is worth burning a client.  I’ve never met anyone in the search business who was willing to burn a client over one placement fee.  I’m not saying it doesn’t happen. I’m sure there are firms that have done it after they’ve made the decision they no longer care if they have a long term relationship with a client.

What I rarely see happen is that the organization takes responsibility for making the hiring decision. In this case, the University of Minnesota wanted to hire Teague, who had help VCU rise to a national basketball power.  They were hoping Teague could bring some of that magic to the twin cities.  My guess is, even if they new of the harassment issue, they still would have moved forward with the hire.

The reality is search firms don’t hire anyone.  You hire.  You make the final decision.  The best search firms will advise you on the candidate and the market, but none hold a gun to your head.  When that decision goes south, it has very little to do with the search firm, yet, and I see it constantly, organizations love to blame search firms for their bad hires!

What’s the morale to this story?  Never pay $125K for a search.  You will never feel like you got value for that cost!

THE TOP 20 BRANDED HR & TALENT PROS: Meet Jim D’Amico from Spectrum Health

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Let’s face it – Fearful of the spotlight and conservative to a fault, HR pros generally aren’t the best examples to look towards when it comes to professional branding. Kris Dunn (Kinetix RPO, The HR Capitalist) and Tim Sackett (HRU Technical Resources, TimSackett.com) think that needs to change.  That’s why they created this series – The Top 20 Branded HR Pros(sponsored by the team at Glassdoor).

KD and Tim searched the globe for HR Pros who used the tools at their disposal (writing, speaking, social and more) to brand themselves in the HR space, but limited the results to actual practitioners in the areas of HR, Recruiting and Talent Management.  No consultants, no vendors. They found out well-branded HR pros who are actual practitioners are hard to find.  

Tim and KD are running the Top 20 they found here on the HR Capitalist and at TimSackett.com.  No rankings, just inclusion in the list and some notes on why.  There are at least 20 well-branded HR Pros in the world.  These are their stories. 

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Jim D’Amico was born to work in Talent Acquisition.  He’s the kind of guy who strikes up conversations with you while you wait in line at Starbucks hoping no one will strike up a conversation with you!  The great part of about Jim, is once he does strike up that conversation, you find out you just had a pretty cool conversation!

Jim is the Director of Talent Acquisition at Spectrum Health in Grand Rapids, MI.  Jim is personally responsible for branding his TA team, “The Best Damn Talent Acquisition Team on the Planet!”  To back up this assertion, ERE voted Spectrum Health the #1 Talent Acquisition team of 2015.  Jim is also the co-Founder of the Michigan Recruiters Conference, held bi-annually across the state to help other corporate TA shops develop into greatness!

Check out Jim’s player card:

Glassdoor Top 20 - Jim D'Amico

 

Jim has 15 years of experience in the Talent Acquisition game, with both domestic and international assignments.  His current role in healthcare supports an employee base of 24,000 and his team will hire over 5,000 in 2015 alone!

Jim’s branding game is anchored around his writing and speaking.  He’s a regular on the ERE speaking circuit, and a frequent contributor to the ERE writing side as well.  Jim also has been active and involved in many local grassroots efforts to support recruiting as a function in the communities he lives.  Most recently with the Michigan Recruiters Conference, but he also has worked on similar projects in West Michigan and Minnesota as well.

Jim is the poster child for being a Brand Ambassador. I mean, seriously, who comes in and names their TA team “The Best Damn TA Team on the Planet!” Jim Does!  That takes a ton of confidence to know that while we might not be ‘that’ yet, we are going to be!  ERE’s award this years solidified the title.

A fun fact about Jim?  He moonlights as a standup Comic!  He also does a ton of volunteer work in around Grand Rapids, MI.  Basically, branding, professionally and personally is who he is.   If you get a chance to catch him on Recruiting/HR speaking circuit make sure you do, he’s well worth it. Otherwise, connect with him on LinkedIn, you can try on Twitter (he’s a not a huge Tweeter), and don’t even try on Instagram!

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The Top 20 Branded HR Pros is brought to you by Glassdoor, who invites you to attend the Annual Glassdoor Employer Branding Summit on September 25th, where a stellar speaker lineup of industry experts and thought leaders exploring the intersection of employer branding and talent acquisition, the candidate experience and employee engagement. 

Tickets are sold out, but wait!  You can attend the livestream online featuring studio coverage with Kris Dunn and Tim Sackett by registering here (click to register).  Fun and games are sure to be a part of that coverage.

 

T3 – The HR Tech Conference

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For T3 today I’m talking about the HR Tech Conference, not an individual piece of HR or Talent Technology.  The HR Tech Conference is held each year in Vegas in October. This year it’s October 18-21 at the Mandalay Bay.  I love this conference!

This year I’ll be attending HR Tech as an HR Tech Insider.  I’m not sure what this means except I’ll be blogging and talking about great HR Tech like I usually do, but maybe I’ll get access to some inside information like thirteen seconds before you get privy to the information as well! Yay, me!

HR Tech is one of the conferences I look forward to each year.  All the big HR and Talent Tech players launch all their new stuff.  All the up and coming HR tech comings come out and unveil what they are working on, and last year HR Tech even added a Startup area so I got introduced to about dozen companies that no one has heard of, that are working on stuff you’ll be using in five years!

It’s like Comic Con for HR nerds that love technology!

Here’s the other thing that HR Tech offers that you won’t get at conferences like SHRM.  You get a ton of of sessions where real HR pros and companies get on stage and talk about their secret sauce!  They talk about what they are using, how they are using it and all the good, bad and ugly it took to get them to this point.  It’s a brilliant format that I think teaches HR leaders what they really need to know.

I will caution HR and Talent Pros.  This conference isn’t for everyone.  I recommend HR Tech to everyone, and last year had some folks attend, on my recommendation and they weren’t very impressed. Why? It’s not SHRM.  They were expecting SHRM and HR Tech is not SHRM.  HR Tech is like the anti-SHRM.  I’m not knocking SHRM. I also like SHRM National, but for different reasons.

The audience at HR Tech is different from SHRM.  HR Tech gets more HR leaders, HRIS pros and organizational IT pros, basically buyers of HR and Talent technology.   The conversations and sessions that take place at HR Tech are definitely more strategic in nature than you’ll get in normal conversations at SHRM.  The other big difference is attendees of HR Tech seem more engaged and excited about HR as a function.

So, I’m again excited to be attending and blogging the latest and greatest HR and Talent Tech that I see.  If you want to go, I have a discount code you can use to receive $150 off your registration: Promo Code: SACKETT  (www.hrtechconference.com/register.html).  The code is good until October 15th!

Hope to see you at the conference!

SHRM National Speaker Feedback!

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Got my/our SHRM National Speaker Evaluation back last week.  It’s always fun to get and look at the comments and how you rated as compared the average.  Kris Dunn and I co-presented at SHRM this year. The session was titled: We’re Bringing Techy Back, and it focused on how to buy HR technology.

Here were are ratings, based on 152 responses:

Item Rated Our Average Rating  All Session Average Ratings
Quality of Information 4.41 4.27
Presenters 4.58 4.32
Too Basic 16 14
About Right 78 82
Too Advanced 1 1
Didn’t notice 4 4
Did They Sell – Yes 2 5
No 98 95

All that is cool.  Pretty good ratings. KD and I were happy with the presentation. Great turnout and high participation.

The great part of the SHRM Presentation evaluation are the Real comments that people leave you.

We got a lot like this (95%): 

– “Love these guys! Fresh, from the heart, solid content. Fun.” 

– “HR Pros need to have this presentation.” 

– “Most informative session I’ve attended. Best presentation so far!” 

– “Best session I’ve been to in years! Tons of practical advice. Very engaging!” 

We got a few like this (1%): 

– “Offensive towards vendors and sales people.”

– “The corny jokes at the beginning could be done without. Humility is a good thing.”

– “Very disappointed – a topic of great interest and the deliver ruined the presentation.”

We got some that made us laugh! 

– “Kris interrupts Tim a lot.” (thanks, to my one fan!)

– “Found that the tech session has paper evaluation forms!” (well…)

– “The guys attempt at being funny affected credibility.” (You’re telling us!)

One of the biggest takeaways was a lot of comments about what people were hoping we would have done more of, namely, tell them exactly what vendor to use, for certain situations. It’s the “what ATS should I buy?” dilemma. Kris and I addressed this because we knew this would be stuff people would want.  The problem is, a great technology for one organization, might be the exact wrong technology for another organization.

With such a diverse crowd at SHRM, it is almost impossible to recommend one HR and Talent vendor over another, if we are being honest about what is the best choice for your organization specifically.

This does bring up a great issue, though, across all the SHRM attendees.

People commented on this because they truly want an unbiased and trustworthy opinion on who they should be looking at, and what they should be buying.  They don’t trust vendors, for the obvious reason the vendor is trying to sell you.  They don’t trust industry analysts because they are all in bed with someone.  They don’t want to pay for consultants.

The HR and Talent industry doesn’t have a Consumer’s Report or Trip Advisor to give HR Pros unbiased advice.  So, they look at people, like Kris and I, as someone who will tell them the truth.  Which we would, and did, for many who stayed after and we had one on one conversations with about their specific issue.

I think SHRM could fill this void with some kind of behind the member wall “Trip Advisor” like site that allows all of us to give our own feedback on all HR and Talent technology.  This community share would be invaluable for all of us trying to make that next buying decision.

Get Your Employees to Stop Sleepwalking Through Open Enrollment

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Hey gang! I’m doing another SHRM Webinar to help you get your employees more involved in this year’s Open Enrollment, and give you some of the background to what frustrates them the most, along with some tips on waking them up!

Do way too many of your employees default into exactly the same plan they chose the year before…just because it’s easier? Is their reluctance to even consider making changes to their benefits costing them — and your company — serious money?

If so, you’re going to love the advice I have to offer about waking up your benefits sleepwalkers in this lively one-hour webinar.

Specifically, you’ll learn:

  • Why the same old, same old is so appealing to people, and how to make change seem less intimidating
  • Smart ways to deal with the blowback you might get if you take away a plan option
  • Why employees find making benefits decisions so dang hard – and how you can help alleviate their stress
  • What you can do to jolt your benefits sleepwalking employees awake once and for all

In short: if you’ve ever struggled to get employees to embrace a new plan or to take any action at all during open enrollment, this is the webinar for you!

August 20th at 2pm EST – just in time for your afternoon nap on the East Coast, and your lunch nap on the West Coast!

Free Webinar (Sponsored by SHRM and ALEX) –  How to Get Your Employees to Stop Sleepwalking Through Open Enrollment—And Help Them Make Better Decisions! 

REGISTER HERE! 

Bathroom Monitor: The Newest HR Pro Title

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I love HR.  I’m always on the lookout for the next latest and greatest HR title, so this is an exciting day!  The WaterSaver Faucet Company in Chicago, a great Union town, decided to add “Bathroom Monitor” to the duties HR is now responsible for. Check it out:

“If you work at WaterSaver Faucet Company, when you gotta go, you might not want to go.

The Chicago company installed a new system that monitors bathroom breaks and penalizes employees who spend more than six minutes a day in the washroom outside their normal breaks.

“The HR woman literally goes through every person’s bathroom use and either hands out a reward or discipline,” said Nick Kreitman, an attorney for Teamsters Local 743, which represents 80 workers at the plant, which coincidentally manufactures taps and other sink fixtures.

Employees who don’t use extra breaks get a dollar a day while others who exceed more than one hour in a 10-day period will get a warning, which can lead to termination, he said.”

Now, you probably think this is where I’ll rant about how being a Bathroom Monitor isn’t strategic and demeaning to HR Pros. But, I’m not. In this case, workers are getting what they have asked for.

If you act like a child, employers are forced to treat you like a child.  Adults use the bathroom for reasons G*d intended. Children use the bathroom for that reason and about a hundred others.  Have you ever spent time in an elementary school!?!  I have.  I taught elementary aged children.  The bathroom is a place to go when you’re bored in class to waste time. The bathroom is where mischief happens.

Watersaver HR is doing what is has to, to solve an employee problem it is having.  Employees were taking an advantage of unlimited bathroom breaks that the employer had given to them.  It wasn’t everyone, but it was enough that Watersaver felt the need to make changes.  Employees can still take a bathroom break any time they need, but once a certain amount of time is taken up over a ten day period, it starts to become a disciplinary issue.

Do I agree with this type of strategy? No.

Here’s how I would have handled it.  I would have had the managers who were having issues with a few employees taking too many bathroom breaks, get rid of those employees who were abusing the privilege of unlimited breaks.  I would have sent the message, that we don’t put up with childish behavior.  We want adults to work here.

You know what? The other employees, the majority, also want to work with other adults.  They would have applauded this. Because adults hate when they are working their butts off and others, doing the same job, are goofing off.  We are talking about medical need here.  We are talking about adults who don’t want to work for the money they are being paid. Those people have to go bye-bye.

That’s the type of strategy I would have rather seen Watersaver take.

There’s No Free Staffing Option

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I’ve gotten a chance to work both sides of the fence for an extended period of time in the Talent Acquisition/Recruiting/Staffing game. For ten years I ran corporate talent acquisition shops for some very large organizations.  One organization spent over $3M annually on staffing agency fees! Obviously, prior to me getting there!

I’ve spent almost fifeteen years on the agency side, sandwiched in between my corporate experience. What I’ve learned along the way is that there isn’t a “free” option when it comes to hiring great talent.

Frequently, I get asked from clients for discounts to my fees on the agency side.  I get that. When I was on the corporate side, I would never take an agency’s first offer.  Here’s the main problem with all of this:

Corporate talent acquisition pros don’t want any of it. They don’t your 20% direct fee, they don’t want your retained plan, they don’t want your RPO plan. What they want is Free. A free option.

Therein lies everything you need to know about staffing agencies and corporate talent acquisition.  One side wants free. One side needs to get paid.

The reality is, even staffing on your own on the corporate side isn’t free.  Corporate talent acquisition done right, has a ton of costs. Recruitment tools, automation, branding, job boards, applicant tracking, college strategy, recruiter training and hiring, etc. None of that is free.

All of this, though, should be screaming to the agency folks that something isn’t right.  What corporate talent acquisition pros are saying is “we don’t like the options we are getting from agencies”.  This should be of serious concern, because there are companies trying to design other options for corporate talent acquisition pros.  Options where they’ll feel like they are getting the value they want.

These options aren’t free, either, but they are less than all of the traditional options that 99% of staffing agencies are offering.

When I was on the corporate TA side of the desk, here was my decision matrix to when I would use a staffing agency. This matrix made me feel good about my decision to use an agency:

1. Does my team have the capacity to do this search? If Yes, why would I pay to have this done. If No, the cost if justifiable.

2. Does the agency offer me a recruitment expertise and/or pipeline I don’t have on my team?  See #1 for Yes and No options.

3. Is it financially feasible for me to add more capacity to my team, as compared to an agency option? This one took some more work. If I had a need for an agency to fill, let’s say, three positions and it was going to cost me $100K, well, obviously I could hire a pretty good recruiter for $100K. But, would I need that Recruiter in year 2, 3, etc.? Adding headcount isn’t a one time cost for an organization.

Ultimately, for me on the corporate side, it was almost always a capacity issue.  I had the expertise, but we had bubbles of work I needed extra support with.  Too often, I see corporate TA leaders upset over agency spend and it’s based on the fact they don’t have good recruiters on their team, yet there unwilling to change this fact. I’ll pay for additional short term capacity. I won’t pay for expertise I should have on my team everyday. That becomes my issue!

Corporate TA leaders become frustrated over agency spend because ultimately it’s a reflection on the team they have created.