T3 – @HyphenApp

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This week on T3 I review the employee community/communication/engagement/feedback tool Hyphen.  Hyphen is a mobile app that allows employees to communicate anonymously, but within a company parameter.  Only those with an organizational email can sign into and message within the Hyphen app for that company. The organization controls who gets in and taken out through this email feature. Although, any employee, with an organizational email, can start using Hyphen.

Employees, at all levels, can use Hyphen at anytime, anywhere, through their mobile device.  Everything they post is anonymous.  This keeps the conversation open from free of retribution of what is said.  It’s community moderated, so users can flag inappropriate content, and once you get flagged three times, you get put in a penalty box.  Any flagged material gets taken down.

Too often, as companies get larger, the real opinions get lost. With Hyphen, that will no longer be the case. Also, an individual can easily ask for timely, anonymous, unbiased feedback.

The 5 Things I really like about Hyphen: 

1. It’s free to users, but if the organization or HR wants to use a dashboard that will get them data analytics and some more control, that cost per user.  It doesn’t give HR access to which user posted what, or who they actual users are, but it will give them so fairly robust analytics.

2.  Executives can easily use Hyphen to get real time feedback on anything.  Hyphen can configure the app to have your executives or leadership, show up differently, so your workforce knows that a question or feedback is coming from someone on the executive team.  I love this!  Most executives complain about the filtering of information that makes it to them. It’s so vanilla and politically correct by the time they hear it, they don’t know what to really believe.

3. Hyphen can break out groups within your workforce, allowing team leaders to ask questions to their group only, or give feedback that way as well, without the rest of the company seeing the stream.

4. Hyphen can be used by individual employees to build 360 groups and gather feedback about their performance, or ask questions on virtually anything.

5. I like the community moderation and the organization’s ability to shut off employees who leave the organization.  Every company would love to have a communication tool like this, but fear where it might go because of the anonymous feature. Hyphen has found a way to make both worlds happy.

Check it out. Your employees might already have, and be using it.

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 space and I wanted to educate myself and share what I find.  If you want to be on T3 – send me a note.

I’m Uninviting You

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I’m not terminating anyone ever again.

I can’t terminate anyone, because I don’t hire anyone.  I do invite people to join me.  Join me on this journey, on this path. It’s going to be a great trip.  I invite them to be  apart of my family.  Not my ‘work’ family, but my actual family.  I spend more time with my co-workers than I do with my wife and children (in terms of waking hours).  So, when I invite someone to join us, it is not something I take lightly.

That’s why, from now on, I’m not terminating anyone.  From now on, I’m just uninviting them to continue being a part part of what we have going on.  Just like a party.  You were invited to attend, but you end up drinking too much and making a fool out of yourself, so now you’re uninvited. You can’t attend the next party.  I don’t know about you, but when I throw a party, I never (and I mean never) invite someone I can’t stand.  Sometimes couple have issues with this, where one spouse wants to invite his or her friend, but their spouse is a complete tool and it causes issues.  Not in my family, we only invite those people we want to be around, life is too short.

Here’s the deal.  When you invited someone into your family, you usually end up falling in love with them.  It’s that way in business. It’s the main reason we have such a hard time firing on bad performers.  We fall in love with those people we hire.  “Oh, Mary, she’s such a nice person!”  But, Mary, can’t tie her shoes and chew gum at the same time.  So, we give Mary chances, too many chances, and pretty soon Mary is part of the family.  It’s hard terminating part of the family.

I would rather just not invite Mary to attend work any longer.  “Hey, Mary, we love you, but look, we aren’t going to invite you to work.  We’ll still see you at 5pm over at the bar for drinks.”  Sounds so much easier, right!?  It happens all the time.  I use to get invited to stuff, but somewhere down the road the group stopped inviting me.  I might have been a little upset over it, but it didn’t last and I’m still friends with everyone.  Termination is so permanent, it’s like death.  Being uninvited sends the same message, but there’s a part of being uninvited that says “you know what, maybe it was you, maybe it was us, but let’s just face it, together it doesn’t work.”

You’re Uninvited.

Are you Great at Faking it?

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In our zest to have high employee engagement, HR has once again outsmarted itself.  Follow the logic:

1. High Employee Engagement is a desired measure.

2. HR creates programs to drive Employee Engagement upwards.

3. Employee Engagement thresholds are reached with said programs.

4. HR needs more.

5. If we ensure every new hire comes in ‘loving’ their job/company/industry – we will ‘pre-buy’ some of the engagement measure.

6. Only hire people who ‘love’ our job/company/industry.

7. Candidates have brains.  “Oh, you only hire people who ‘love’ your job/company/industry”

8. Candidates now become really good at ‘faking’ their ‘love’ for your job/company/industry.

9.  Employees are smart to – “Oh, you mean if our ‘engagement’ score comes back higher, you’ll stop making us do these stupid team building exercises?”

10. Employees become really good at ‘faking’ it.

Being male, I was never good at faking it.  I’m Popeye – “I am, what I am, and that’s all I am”.   Fast Company had a solid post on why “Faking Enthusiasm” has become the latest job requirement. From the post:

“Timothy Noah wrote in The New Republic about how Pret A Manger requires its employees to master “Pret behaviors,” such as “has presence,” “creates a sense of fun,” and “is happy to be themself.” Yes–in order to sell you a bacon sandwich, employees must be fully self-actualized. And the amount that they touch fellow-employees is considered to be a positive indicator of sales, not a red flag for sexual-harassment lawsuits.”

It’s such a slippery slope.  Every action we take in leadership has consequences – some of which we know, some we don’t know until they happen.  The best leaders thoroughly try to anticipate these consequences their actions will create.   Requiring employees/candidates have high levels of enthusiasm might seem like a really great idea – but you better have authentic ways of measuring, or you’re just setting yourself up to fooled by those who ‘get’ the game.

Ultimately time and pressure always win out.  Given enough time and/or enough pressure an individuals true colors will show.  This is why it’s important to job requirements that are actually needed.  Authentic enthusiasm is not needed for high performers in most jobs.  Trying to hire for it can create some negative hiring scenarios when time and pressure take their tolls.  Is it great to have enthusiastic employees? Yep – it sure is.  I love being around those employees.  Do I set out to hire that ‘skill’ as a requirement – no – I have great even keel employees as well.  While I might not stop and interact with them as often – they are just as good as the enthusiastic ones.

Here’s what I know. If you’re hiring for a skill that can be faked – candidates will attempt to fake it, if they really want to work for your company.  How do you combat this – eliminate as much subjective stuff as you can from your selection process.  One other thing, if you do decide you need that high-energy personality, understand that personality just doesn’t come when you want it – it’s a person’s core – you get it all the time – there’s no light switch when you decide you’ve had enough.  I see hiring managers all the time that want a ‘certain personality’ – so we find it for them – only to have that same hiring manager come back 6 months later complaining it’s too much!

Your Leaders Secretly Hate Succession Planning

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You want to know what you’ll never hear anyone on your leadership team say publicly?  Well, let me stop before I get started, because there are probably a ton of things leaders will say behind closed doors, off the record, and then open the door and say the exact opposite. Welcome to the PC version of corporate America.

One of the obvious, which always causes a stir is veteran hiring.  William Tincup and I were just talking about this last week, in regards to a correlation he was making about organizations and succession planning.  I wrote a post about Veteran Hiring a while back, in which I state that companies will always, 100% of the time, publicly say they support veteran hiring, but behind closed doors they don’t really support veteran hiring.

If they did, we would not have a veteran hiring crisis in this country! If every organization who claims they want to hire veterans, would just hire veterans, we would have 100% employed veterans! But we don’t. Why?  Well, it’s organizational suicide to ever come out and say we don’t really want to hire veterans.  The media would kill that organization. Yet, veterans can’t get hired.

Succession planning is on a similar path.  Your leaders say the support succession planning. They’ll claim it is a number one priority for your organization. But, every time you try and do something with succession planning, it goes no where!

Why?

Your leaders hate succession planning for a number of reasons, here are few:

1. Financially, succession planning is a huge burden on organizations, if done right.  Leaders are paid on the financial success of your organization. If it comes down to Succession Planning, or Michael getting a big bonus, Succession Planning will get pushed to next year, then, next year, then, next year…  You see Succession Planning is really over hiring. Preparing for the future. It’s a long term pay back.  Very few organizations have leadership in place with this type of long term vision of success.

2.  Leaders get too caught up in headcount.  We only have 100 FTEs for that group, we couldn’t possibly hire 105 and develop and prepare the team for the future, even though we know we have 6% turnover each year.  Organizations react. Fire fight.  Most are unwilling to ‘over hire’ and do succession in a meaningful way.

3. Leaders are like 18 year old boys. They think they can do it forever!  Again, publicly they’ll tell you they’re planning and it’s important. Privately, they look at some smartass 35 year old VP and think to themselves, there is no way in hell I’ll ever let that kid take over this ship!

So, what can smart HR Pros do?

Begin testing some Succession Planning type tools and data analytics in hot spots in your company. Don’t make it a leadership thing. Make it a functional level initiative, in a carve out area of your organization.  A part of the organization that is highly visible, has direct financial impact to the business, and one you know outwardly has succession issues.

Tinker. Get people involved. Have conversations. Start playing around with some things that could have impact in terms of development, retention, cross training, workforce planning, etc.  All those things that constitute succession, but instead of organization level, you are focusing on departmental level or a specific location.

Smart HR Pros get started.  They don’t wait for the organization to do it all at once. That will probably never happen.  Just start somewhere, and roll it little by little. Too often we don’t get started because we want to do it all. That is the biggest mistake we can make.

The 19 Types of HR & Talent Software You Need

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I’m a virgin when it comes to HR Technology.  When I first got into really studying the industry I probably put HR technology into about three buckets: HR system of record, applicant tracking systems and payroll.  If you had those three types of software you had what you basically needed to run HR.

My friends, William and John, over at Key Interval Research recently released their latest study called “The Optimal Technical Stack”. The goal being let’s figure out what pieces of HR and Talent Technology you really need to run a ‘complete’ HR shop, and ideal HR shop.  If money was no object, what technology solutions should you have to be great?

Here’s the list. I’m going to put in order to what I think you should invest in first to last. The guys at Key Interval did not do this. They do real research, this ranking is just my opinion:

1. Human Resource Information System (HRIS)

2. Payroll

3. Recruiting/Talent Acquisition (Applicant Tracking Systems & Recruiting Automation)

4. Benefits Management

5. OnBoarding

6. Total Rewards (Recognition)

7. Performance Management

8.  Time & Attendance/Scheduling (Key broke T&A and Scheduling out separately, I think they go together)

9. Learning Management

10. HR Analytics

11. Succession Management

12. Engagement Tools

13. Recruiting Tools (Interviewing tools and Assessments – Key broke these out as two separate categories)

14. Wellness Management

15. Compensation Management

16. Employment Websites (CareerBuilder, LinkedIn, Glassdoor, etc.)

17. Collaboration/Communication Tools (Tools that help your employees communicate with each other: Yammer, TINYPulse, Chatter, etc.)

18. Case Management (Employee hotlines, tracking calls and issues brought into HR, etc.)

19. Workforce Planning & Workforce Management (Key had these broken out, but I think they actually probably fall into one of the 18 categories I have listed above somewhere)

You might rank this list differently depending on the situation you find yourself in with your current organization.  If I had my HR shop locked in and running down the tracks smoothly, maybe I would move up Wellness. If I had a crunch on hiring, maybe I move up some of the recruiting, interviewing talent attraction types of technology.

I think most people would look at this list and believe that their HR ‘suite’ is providing them with most, if not all of this stuff.  The reality is, most suites are good with about three of these, touch another three, and try to make you believe they have another three. That makes nine pieces they might cover, which leaves a ton of technology you just don’t have.

If you were to listen to any HR or Talent technology vendor in 2015, you would be led to believe that the only piece of technology you really need is HR Analytics!  That’s all we hear in the marketplace right now.

Another fascinating piece from the Key Interval research was that Succession Technology is ranked as the most desired need of organizations. Yet, has one of the lowest market penetrations. Also, it was clear to me, that organizations don’t really see any leader in this space. Most respondents used one of three tools for Succession: Some in-house/home grown (like an Excel spreadsheet), relied on what their HRIS suite offered (which is probably very weak) or relied on what their Learning Management system offered (probably weaker yet!).

No real players in Succession Technology!  Sounds like an opportunity…

Fascinating research and data from Key Interval.  Check them out. I love receiving their reports!

 

T3 – @Learnkit

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This week on T3 I’m reviewing elearning company Learnkit.  Learnkit is a custom elearning agency that, through our unique Learn-cycle pedagogy, produces engaging and enjoyable learning experiences to help organizations and individuals get better, everyday.

What does that mean?  They take your old and tired corporate learning materials and make them innovative, cool and fresh.  Learnkit is an extension of your Learning and Organization Development team.

They offer similar benefits reaped by an internal marketing department that outsources their creative work to a high-end agency.  Bringing this same level of expertise and experience in-house can be very expensive, and often internal teams don’t have the resources to develop elearning at the pace their organization needs. A company like Learnkit has the ability and specialized digital learning experts to rapidly produce tailor-made learning solutions that will match your brand and take advantage of the most cutting edge learning experiences on the market.

5 Things I really like about Learnkit: 

1. Measurable data. Learnkit builds on an elearning platform that provides you with great data, real-time. LOD teams are being pushed to innovate and prove ROI. You only do this by having the data available.

2. Standardize experiences. Learnkit provides a standardized experience across all those you are developing in your organization.

3. On demand access. Our organizations, leaders and employees expect training and development differently today, than ten years ago.  We can no longer wait until the training course is offered again, next month.  On demand elearning systems are a must for large organizations today.

4. Learnkit was impressive in their understanding that in every learning situation in an organization, it’s not just about delivering content, it’s also about having an opportunity to engage and aspire your workforce to be better. Better as individuals, but also better as a whole. This is unique.

5. Learnkit doesn’t offer a cookie cutter, one-size fits all approach.  You see this a lot in elearning solutions. We built something, we throw your content into it, it will work. Maybe, maybe not. I saw multiple client elearning sites that Learnkit put together and none were the same, and all fit the culture and brand of the client they were working with.

Here’s what I know.  In every organization I worked for on the corporate HR side, we had great LOD folks.  The problem was they never had the resources, time and creativity to produce great training and development materials. They were good, but they weren’t great.  We are beginning a time in HR where organizations are going to have to put money into training and development.  For my money, I’m shopping out the design and digital work to experts, and letting my internal team build the content.

 

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 space and I wanted to educate myself and share what I find.  If you want to be on T3 – send me a note.

HR Never Wins the Dress Code Game

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You probably saw this last week when the internet got all hot and bothered over a 17 year old girl who worked at JC Penny got sent home for a dress code violation. She tweeted out a picture of herself dressed in JC Penny bought ‘career’ apparel that she was wearing at the time (see pic above). The only place where I see this being dressed appropriate for work is probably Hooters, but you know me, I’m super ultra conservative right winged nut job, so what the hell do I know…

Many wanted were angry over what they saw as a double standard, although I’m not sure what that double standard is. I would have been more upset over a 17 year old boy wearing this outfit to work than the girl!  I would have sent both home, so there goes your double standard.

The real issue here is that JC Penny labeled this outfit ‘career apparel” to the customers, but didn’t find it career appropriate for their own associate. If JC Penny is labeling this outfit on their shelves appropriate work wear, why is it inappropriate work wear for their own employees?

Well, I have some reasons:

1. It’s tight and revealing for the average customer of JC Penny.  The average age of a JC Penny shopper is 103 years of age.  The last thing an old person wants to see is a fourth of July wannabe stripper.  That’s knowing your customer base.  I’m sure if she was working at Hot Topic, she wouldn’t have been sent home.

2. There a difference between marketing and operations.  Just because marketing is calling something ‘career appropriate’, doesn’t mean your HR and Operations folks will feel the same way.  Welcome to the reality of working in a corporation. People aren’t always on the same page, and that is a bad thing.

3. 17 year olds have no ability to understand the broader picture of the corporate politics at play here.  It’s too bad someone couldn’t have better coached this young lady on how to handle this situation to have a better impact for herself and fellow employees. Going nuclear wasn’t the best option for her.

4. HR never wins when it comes to dress code, because of these kinds of issues.

HR should give up the dress code policy whenever it’s an option and let your operations team own it. They know their customer base. They know their work environment. They know their employees.  Let them build a dress code that works for them, and trust they’ll do what’s right for the organization.  I’ve done this three times in my career, and all three times it worked out wonderfully, and I didn’t ever have to deal with dress code ever again!

Ask Sackett: Mid Career Change

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One of the coolest things that happened when I started writing blog posts eight years ago, is people reach out to you and ask you questions.  Random people you don’t know off the internet asking me for my ‘expert’ advice.  It’s scary, comical and flattering all at the same time!

This week a question came in about how would I go about making a mid-career change from one profession to another.  In this case, the person was wanting to move out of a teaching profession and into an information technology profession.  This individual is about ten years into their teaching career. Went back to school, while working, and got another bachelor’s degree in IT.

How do I get a position in IT? That was the actual question, but as you can imagine, that question is fraught with complexity!

Here is the biggest problem most people face when making a mid-career job change, they can’t stop working at their current job to get experience working in their new field.

So many people fall into this trap!  You want to change careers, but you’re working and making a decent living, paying the bills, living life.  You go back to school in the evening, taking on more debt to get the education. Still busting your butt during the week in the job you no longer love, waiting to start your new career.

That’s when you first begin hearing things like, “well, you’ll need some experience to work here”, or “we don’t have entry level positions for someone at ‘your level'”.  “At my level?” What does that mean?  It means, organizations aren’t comfortable hiring a 32 year old for a position they usually hire 21 year olds in. Plus, you aren’t comfortable making an entry level wage at this point in your life.

This is why people stay in miserable jobs.  Once you get far enough down a career path, you are really left with few choices.

So, what was my advice?

– Find a ‘free’ internship. Work your regular full time job, then find some hours in your week to work for free in your new field. You have to get some kind of experience in your new field, especially if you’re a mid-career professional.

– Start adjusting your lifestyle to be an entry level professional.  Remember when you were first starting out in that apartment and crappy car? Not going out and drinking cheap beer?  Welcome back. More than likely you will have to make this adjustment. It’s worth it, if you’ll be happy. Embrace it. Less is more.

– Use your current professional connections to begin connecting with hiring managers in the career you want, not the career you have.  You have to start networking like you’re an entry level graduating from college, looking for you first job. But, you have the network that can help you, that no new college grad has!

– Lastly, give your current employer, if possible, a shot at moving you into the position you want.  Many times employers will work with you to gradually move you into the role you want, by giving you some experiences working in the position you want, and gradually transition you out of your current position and into the new one.

5 Great Excuses To Miss a Co-workers Wedding

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I had one of my Recruiters ask for some advice this week. It wasn’t work advice, it was a little more personal.  She had told a person she would attend a wedding of a family member with them, but was having second thoughts. It was one of those Holy Crap moments! I don’t really like this person that much, and I don’t want to go to a family wedding with him and send the wrong message.

So, what was my advice?  It started out pretty straight. Tell them the truth!  “Look dude, I’m just not that into you, and the last place on earth I want to be on Saturday evening is sitting at a table with your parents and Aunt Betty with them thinking “ours” is next!”

As you can imagine, that wasn’t going to do.  Not that she didn’t want to tell him the truth, but she also didn’t want to hurt him. She was looking for a softer way to cut him loose.  You know! A how-do-I-get-him-to-not-want-me-to-go excuse – like he can’t stand my breathe or I have hammer toes, or something!?

Now, she was truly diving into my end of the pool!  You want a “Fake Reason” why you can’t go!  YES! I’m in HR. I’m in Recruiting. I’m the king of fake excuses of why people don’t get the job!  I’m on it!

So, here’s the first 3 I gave her:

  1. You haveVD! (Ok, I know this is strong right out of the gate – but let’s face the facts – most dudes will run from this!  Funny Fact: She is a millennial and had no idea what “VD” was! I’m old! Using WWII references like it was cool 2015 slang!)
  2. Your Dog has Cancer!(Sketchy I know, but girls and their pets…this one might work.  Funny Fact: Her dog actually did have Eye Cancer, but was cured, so not technically lying…)
  3. You have to Babysit for a Co-worker!(Now this one is fraught with problem – guys have gotten this one before and they might pull a. “Oh, I’ll come and help!” then you’re stuck and have to find some brat to babysit for the night. Funny Fact: She was like “Oh, hell No! I have a Real Job, why would I babysit!”)

All of this brainstorming got me thinking of how I’ve personally gotten out of going to Co-workers Weddings that I didn’t want to go to.  Here are my Top 5 Excuses to  Miss a Co-worker’s Wedding:

  1. I’ll be on Vacation! This is good because you usually find out about the wedding of a co-worker way ahead of time. All you have to do is actually plan for this and take your vacation during the weekend of the wedding. Far, far away from the actual wedding.
  2. My kid has a sports tournament out of town that weekend.  A little sketchy, but it is really hard for them to verify you really didn’t have a sports tournament, and let’s face it, I’m going to my kids sports game (the 127th of this year) vs. your once in a lifetime moment.
  3. I came down with the “Flu”!This one nobody believes, but it’s the go-to excuse because everyone uses it and it has been internationally certified as an acceptable lie to get out of anything.
  4. My Mom/Dad/Grandma/Grandpa/Great Aunt Betty/etc. fell and are at the hospital. I needed to go see them. They needed my help. It was serious.  Let’s face old people fall. In fact, it might be the only thing they have left to do. You hear about old people falling everyday. Very usable excuse in a pinch because it’s somewhat believable and old people don’t remember later on when someone asks “How are you doing after your fall?”, and they’ll go “better” and then complain about their aches and pains.
  5. I’ve got another Wedding that same day! Again, believable, but what you’re really saying to the person is “I’ve ranked you lower than someone else in my life. I hope you understand, but I didn’t buy you a place setting off your registry!”

What is your top excuse for not going to a co-worker’s wedding?

4 Reasons You’ll Leave Your Job on Your Terms

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There’s a million ways to lose your job.  Layoffs, company closes, smacking an employee on the butt, you name it and someone has lost their job over it!

The reality is, though, most people leave their jobs on their own terms and it has nothing to do with more money or a higher level job.

If fact there are four main ways people leave their jobs:

#1 – Crappy Boss.  Almost anyone who has left my company has left because they didn’t like me, or I didn’t like them. Well, to be honest, I probably didn’t like the way they were performing.  If they were performing well, I don’t really care if I like them personally. I’ll take the performance over me liking them!  So, for some I’m a crappy boss, for others I’m not.  The key to great leadership is having only a few believe you’re crappy!

#2 – Bad Job Fit. We hired you and thought you would be awesome. Yay! But, we all messed up with thinking you would fit.  You’re not the right fit. You know it. Doesn’t ‘feel’ right, so you you leave to something that feels better. In so many of our jobs that we hire for, fit is the most important part of success. Fit and showing up every day. Shocking how we can’t figure this out!

#3 – Commute.  Length of commute is subjective.  My friends in Detroit live 10 miles from work and drive an hour on good days to their jobs. They seem completely happy with this commute.  I drive 12 miles and it takes me twenty minutes and if I get slowed down and it takes me 22 minutes, I’m ready to shoot people!  People take a job and think the commute is no big deal, but it is a very big deal for so many people.  If the length of commute comes up in negotiation, run away from that candidate.

#4 – Cultural Fit.  I hate conservative, very political environments.  There’s something about kissing ass all day that makes me not a pleasant person to be around.  You need to know who you are and what kinds of culture you like.  Some of my best friends love ultra-professional conservative cultures and do exceptional working in those cultures.  Everyone has a preference. Find yours.  So many people get this wrong and stay in a culture they hate.

These four reasons make up about 99% of why people decide to leave a company.  People always want you to believe they left for money or a promotion, but all of that can usually be had at their current employer with a little patience and some conversations.