T3 – BlackbookHR – Sense, RNA and Presto

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.

So, I’ll start about saying I’m a proud member of Blackbook HR’s Advisory Board, along with some other great HR pros. But, even prior to that I was a fan of their products – my review of Sense. This review is highlighting two new products that Blackbook HR has launched – RNA and Presto.

First, let me say that I’m not the only one who is really liking what Blackbook is doing.  They were named one of the 2014 HR Tech Conference Awesome New Startups (don’t worry, I’ll be highlighting many of these others as well!).

RNA (Relationship Network Analysis) is one of Blackbook HR’s newest offerings.   When I saw the demo of this at HR Tech I was blown away.  It basically shows you your organization chart, but not by title, by influence!  It’s super cool, and the application of uses for retention, performance and succession are really limitless. One customer is using it to transition new leaders into the organization, so they know which players they need to connect with immediately, and how their organization is really getting work done!

Some of the other really cool things RNA can do if allow you to search your organization by skills. Not only self-reported skills, but all the employees in your organization can also rate each other on those skill levels.  So, you need someone for a new project that has project management skills?  What about the one person in your organization that their peers rate them highest in that skill!?  It does that.  Losing folks to turnover or retirement and need a pool of potential replacements (Succession), you can source that data here.

Also, think about any change management. Who are the most important employees to ensure are bought into the change before rolling it out?  That’s critical for success in any change, and RNA can give you these connections.  You can now go out and work with these individuals first, and let them help drive the change, positively, forward. Merger and acquisitions would be another way I could see this data being extremely important.

I will say, this is much more of an enterprise type of solution.  Most SMB’s probably don’t have enough data to really take advantage of this type of solution. But, if you are in the 2500+ employee range, this will blow your mind.  It’s fairly inexpensive, and the analytics you get from this data are crazy, it’s well worth a demo for sure!

RNA

 

Presto, is Blackbook’s other new product, and it’s totally free to use!  Basically, Presto is a survey App you can use within your organization, department and group.  It doesn’t even have to be used for business, but that’s what it was originally designed for.  Let’s say you just came out of an executive meeting and one of your senior leaders wanted to know how an announcement of some big new project was being ‘viewed’ by your employees.  You could within seconds put out a survey question to your organization, and watch in real-time the survey results come back to you.  Not only do you see, but everyone who participates can see the results.

I even joked you could send it out to your department to see what people wanted for lunch, and the entire group could see what everyone preferred!  It’s basically a real-time way to gather feedback in your organization. Totally free.  Completely simple to use.  I can think of a hundred ways I could use this, or coach my hiring managers to use this in an organization.  While this is a mobile app, the users can also log into a dashboard that gives you tabulated, colorful graphs, that are easily manipulated to share with your organization in which communication way you would like.

Yeah, I’m a fanboy of Blackbook HR.  The thing I like is the people running the company aren’t designing things thinking, ‘what will sell’.  They’re designing things thinking, ‘how do I solve this problem?’, then going, oh crap, how do we make money on this!  That gives them some of the best technology on the market, which you can actually buy or in Presto’s case use for free.

Next Tuesday I’ll be looking at recruitment marketing solution SmashFly!

3 Real Reasons HR Does Exit Interviews

The exit interview process is much like most organizations employee referral process. You believe you should have a process.  You design the process.  It’s going to be great! It starts out great.  At some point, soon after starting the process, it dies a slow horrible death!

Exit interviews are something every HR pro believes are important, but very few actually do a great job at.  The problem with most exit interview processes is that their very HR dependent and take a ton of follow through.   Another major problem is that while our executives say they want the data from the interviews, rarely do they believe what they are given.  Most chaulk bad interviews up to disgruntled employees and discount the entire process.

So, why do we give Exit Interviews?  I’ll give you three ‘real’ reasons HR wants to do exit interviews:

1. We want to know where you’re going!  Yep, HR folks love to gossip and we want to be the first ones to know where you’re going and why.

2. We trying to get your current manager fired!  You know what’s really frustrating in HR? Having to hire over and over again for the same bad managers!

3. We need data to look strategic. But we’ll never really make any changes based on what we find.  What? Everyone is leaving us because our competition across the street is providing more flexibility.  Yeah, well, they suck and you suck if you go to work for them!

Chalk this up to data that our executives say they want, but they really don’t!   What they want to hear is the problem our people are leaving us are easy fixes.  When they find out they’re leaving because of their bad leadership, every person who fills out an exit interview immediately becomes a piece of garbage in their eyes.

How do you fix this?

Do ever deliver specific exit interview data immediately after one person leaves, that seems to similar to why that person leaves.  Basically, you never get credit for that being real data.  Exit interview data only becomes ‘real’ when it’s based on a many data points put together.  The problem with that, is it takes most organizations a while to get that much data.  Usually, at that point, it starts to become vanilla.

Individual exit interview feedback can be powerful, but only if it is coming from a top player and you can get everyone involved to agree this is a top performer before the data comes in.  At least, at that point, you have a fighting chance to get them to listen and not discount the feedback.

Let’s face it, we all know most of our issues.  We just hate it when our past employees throw those in our face, when we think we’ve been working hard to correct them.   That kind of feedback is hard to accept, and we tend to discredit it way too fast.  Don’t allow yourself to believe data isn’t statistically significant unless you have a lot of it.  One great employee leaving is significant, and you need to listen to it.  Just know, the up hill battle you’ll face in actually creating the leadership change necessary to address it.

 

I’m Not White Enough

The world of sports tends to bring up societal issues constantly, and the NFL didn’t disappoint last week when Seattle Seahawk’s quarterback Russell Wilson was accused, anonymously by teammates, as “not being ‘black’ enough”.  It’s an issue as HR Pros we face in our own workplace.  More on the statements about Wilson from Charles Barkley in the Bleacher Report:

“Unfortunately, as I tell my white friends, we as black people, we’re never going to be successful not because of you white people but because of other black people,” Barkley said. “When you’re black, you have to deal with so much crap in your life from other black people. It’s a dirty, dark secret; I’m glad it’s coming out.”

The controversy began with an item from Bleacher Report’s Mike Freeman, who said some of Wilson’s Seahawks teammates don’t care for him because “they think he’s too close to the front office,” he “doesn’t always take the blame with teammates for mistakes he makes,” and “some of the black players think Wilson isn’t black enough.”

“There is … an element of race that needs to be discussed,” Freeman said of Wilson’s relationship with his teammates. “My feeling on this — and it’s backed up by several interviews with Seahawks players — is that some of the black players think Wilson isn’t black enough. This is an issue that extends outside of football, into African-American society, though it’s gotten better recently. Well-spoken blacks are seen by some other blacks as not completely black. Some of this is at play.”

I want to say that I understand, but I don’t.  Never in my entire life have I had someone tell me I ‘wasn’t white enough’.  But I have known people who have used the phrase, “Oh, you just wish you were black!”  I gotten this because there are so many things I love about African American culture (music, clothing, food, language) and I grew up in an urban area.  To be honest, I never wished I was black.  I have wished I was taller (I wish I was a baller…), thinner, more athletic, had a better singing voice, etc. I have always figured no one would ever mistake me for anything but white.

To Wilson’s credit, even he responded with: “I don’t even know what that means”, when he was told people didn’t see him as black enough.  According to Wilson’s background he’s mostly African American and Native American. He self-identifies as “mixed-race”.  This has rubbed some of his African American teammates wrong.  They want him to only identify with his African heritage.

In HR we talk ‘inclusion’ all the time.  The ability to ‘include’ all. Black, white, old, young, rich, poor, Democrat, Republican, Christian, Jewish.  All. But the reality is, there are larger forces at play within many of the demographics we are trying to include, and most we’ll never fully understand.

In the end, we just can’t take for granted that one group of people are going to do what’s best for another group, just because they identify with that group.  Culture and engagement are complex, living things.  You do things because you ‘think’ they will work, but they do the opposite.  What are you supposed to do?  Try to rise above it, when you can.  Deal with it directly, when you have to.  Know your own biases and assumptions.

7 Rules for your Office Halloween Party

Is your office dressing up for Halloween?

Mine isn’t.  It’s not that I wouldn’t.  Okay, I wouldn’t.  But if others wanted to, I wouldn’t say “no”.  I mean everyone has that one person in their office that’s a little way too excited over Halloween.  I get it.  I have kids.  They lose their minds at the thought of free candy and dressing up.  But you’re an adult, let’s try and keep it together here at the office.

That is why I think it’s important to Rules for your Office Halloween Party.  Here’s mine:

1. Racism theme costumes never go over like you thought they would when you were drunk and came up with the concept. “No, really, we’re going as the black KKK!” Just don’t do it.

2. Anything with ‘naughty’ in the title isn’t work appropriate. Naughty Teacher, Naughty Nurse, Naughty Witch — you get the idea.  The only time this would work is when taking the opposite stance — Naughty Human Resource Manager is totally appropriate.  This costume consists of a cat sweater, hair in bun, long skirt (pants or skort), old lady panty hose and 6 inch pumps. Sexy!

3. Don’t be the ‘guy’ offering “tricks” all day. That’s just creepy.  Also, don’t be the ‘gal’ offering “tricks” all day. That’s just slutty.

4. Anything that interferes with your ability to do your actual job, shouldn’t be a costume selection.  “Well, I didn’t think about how me being a Rubic’s Cube for the day would get in the way to me being a nurse.”

5. Dressing up like the boss is always in good taste, but only if your boss doesn’t hate you.

6. If you have to put a sign on to explain what you are, go back to the drawing board.  ” Wait, you see I’m ‘Hard to Get Along With'” Yeah, we got it…

7. If less than half your staff will be dressing up, you need to cancel dressing up.  At that point, it’s just sad.

In HR we love our dress code rules and for Halloween parties why should we be different!  What your favorite Halloween party rules at the office?

Are You Reliable or Flashy?

I’m going to put this into a car analogy.  Reliable is a Honda Accord or a Toyota Camry.  Flashy is a Chevy Camaro or a Dodge Charger.  You really can’t be both. In the auto world the closest thing to being both is a Tesla, and most people can’t afford one of those!

You either lean one way or the other.  If you want flashy, you are comfortable with the fact you might not get to work every day, because those cars tend to break down more often.  If you want reliability, you probably aren’t turning any heads, but when you turn your key that engine is starting every time.

I find most people select people like they select cars.  You are biased one way or the other, and find most people biased towards ‘flash’.  They like the good looking people and the smooth talkers.  Damn the results.  That person made me turn my head! They must be ‘good’.  Therein lies one of the major problem we have.  Looking good has absolutely nothing to do with being good.

People look at that new Audi A8 and believe because it looks awesome, it must be awesome.  Do a little research and it becomes a bust of a buy, because it constantly breaks down and has problems.  They look at a Subaru Forester and think ‘boring’! Until they realize that thing will still be running well after you retire.

So, what I’m saying is people are basically cars, minus the extended warranty!

I tend to lean reliable.  It’s not that I don’t like pretty people who speak well.  I really do.  But I really love people who come to work every day and bust ass.  You can be both, you can be a Tesla, but let’s face it, most of us can’t afford that talent!   We make offers to Camrys.  No one pins up photos of Camrys in their bedrooms as a kid.

It’s just so easy to get sucked into flashy.  They’re all bright and shiny, and smell good, and you feel better about them representing your brand, that is until they completely screw something up.   Then you’re out there trying to explain why you hired them to begin with, knowing you can’t say the truth. “Well, have you looked at him!?  He’s gorgeous! How could we not hire him.”

So, the question to you HR and Talent Pros – are you a Toyota Camry buyer or a Chrysler 200/Dodge Avenger buyer? Same exact price point, one is a considerably better buy than the other.

 

T3 – The Resumator

 

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.

This week I looked at The Resumator!  The Resumator is a fairly new company that started in 2009, and is growing like a weed.  They are an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) play, based out of Pittsburgh, PA, with an office in San Francisco.

Yep, I did it.  I started off with an ATS.  Stop! Don’t go, hear me out, this isn’t your momma’s ATS!

I decided to look into The Resumator for a couple of reasons:

1. They specialize in servicing the SMB (small medium business) market – 100-1000 employee companies. I love this space, because I think the HR and Talent Pros in these shops work harder than anyone else!

2. They’re hugely successful. Which tells me, unlike the other 1,739 ATS vendors, they know something everyone else doesn’t.  3,000 plus paid clients, tens of thousands of users, that’s not easy in the SMB ATS space.

I don’t need to go into a ton about what they do.  They’re an ATS, I get it, you get it. Most everyone uses an ATS and most people hate their ATS.  Why? Well, in one simple word it’s customization. You want it, because you think your shop is special.  It’s not, but you force your ATS vendor to customize to you, which causes all kinds of issues with the system. You shouldn’t have done that. That’s why you’re unsatisfied.

The Resumator has one of the more ‘clean’ user interfaces (UI) and user experiences (UX) I’ve seen.  The UI is what you might think of as the ‘design’ of the system. You’ll hear techie types use “UI” and “UX” a ton, don’t get intimidated.  Think Pottery Barn versus Walmart.  You want Pottery Barn design in your home, but you have a Walmart budget.  The Resumator gives you a Pottery Barn ATS UI, for your Walmart budget.

This comes back to their size.  Most ATS have poor UI, thus giving you a poor experience, because they don’t have enough users to justify doing really cool stuff that you see in systems for enterprise buyers.  They have scale.  They use that scale to give you features you don’t usually see in SMB ATS products.  One of the cool ones I loved was what they call “Jobnosis“. It basically rates your Job Descriptions and Titles, automatically, versus all the other data from everyone that uses their systems. It then gives you the likelihood you’ll actually find the talent you want, and gives you suggestions to make it better.  That is really cool.

5 things that impressed me about The Resumator:

1. They leverage the data from 30,000 daily applicants to educate their SMB clients on what is working in real time. Not giving you ‘best practices’ from three years ago. 2 Million+ hires since launching the product.

2. Their email integration is tight and seamless. This isn’t the case for so many of the ATS products for the SMB space.

3. They’re focused on how your hires perform, after the fact, to help you hire more of the better ones. Again, goes back to their ability to leverage ‘big’ data.

4. Super customer focus. Over 30+ new releases in 2014 alone to improve the UX/UI based on customer feedback on making the product better and faster.

5.  Very solid recruiting tools are encompassed into the main product, no extra price, for both passive and active candidate sourcing.

 I’ve purchased 7 different ATS’s in my 20 years of HR and Talent Acquisition.  I have to say that The Resumator also has one of the less painful pricing models I’ve ever seen, that doesn’t penalize for growth!  You pay one monthly fee, as many users as you want, no matter how big your organization.

I keep coming back to the word ‘clean’.  The ATS market is junked up with ‘clunky’ products and systems.  The Resumator wasn’t one of these.  They were ‘clean’ in UI, UX and pricing. Full integration with one of my favorite SMB HR System’s of Record in BambooHR as well!  Like Bamboo, these guys really get the SMB space at a different level than most companies.

Next week’s T3 Company will be BlackbookHR’s newest award winning product RNA that was just launched this month at the HR Technology Conference.

Recruitment Marketing Is Not One-size Fits All!

Hey, gang I’m running a sponsored post by the great folks at Spherion regarding their 2014 Emerging Workforce Study which has some really great data, check it out. 

The big ‘Wow’ that came out of the study for me is how organizations might be discounting how potential workers are using social media to influence their decision on who they work for! It used to be we would primarily rely on our social networks to give us insight to how we thought about potential employers.  “Oh! I know my aunt used to work there and she loved it!” Or, “I know my neighbor works there and says it’s awful!”   Now, it seems like we have an endless supply of opinions and connections about potential employers via the use of social media.

From the study:

    • 44% of workers believe social media is influential in their view of a company they might work for.
    • 51% of workers agree their company’s online reputation impacts its ability to recruit workers.
    • 46% of workers say when they consider new employment, the company’s online reputation will be as important as any job offer they are given.

Too many organizations still do not believe social media really has that much of an impact to their hiring, or their ability to attract the best hires. This is especially true in small and medium sized businesses (SMB). In reality, SMB organizations might be impacted by a negative, or positive, social media perception of candidates than larger organizations, where the data gets washed out by the many numbers.

One other piece that came from the study is how organizations are failing to market towards all generations.  Some of this, for sure, is based on the use of new media, which tends to target a younger workforce.  Organizations really need to dig into their recruitment marketing strategy and specifically look at what mediums are we using and what are those mediums getting us from a candidate demographic perspective.

More interesting data from the study:

    • Less than half (45%) of companies utilize tailored recruitment strategies based on different age groups or professions.
    • Yet, recruiting workers isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. Manufacturing workers are mostly likely to land their job through a staffing agency, while accountants rely on professional associations and networking, IT workers use online sources and admin/clerical workers secure their jobs through classified ads and company websites.

The reality is most organizations don’t dig into this, because like Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men, you don’t want to know the truth!  The truth is, in my opinion, most organizations want to market towards younger workers, so they’re completely fine using a one approach marketing strategy that misses out on older, more experienced workers.  It’s a poor strategy, for sure, as more competitive organizations are figuring out very quickly on how to use and leverage a more experienced aging workforce.

Check out the 2014 EWS Infographic:

Spherion EWS Employment Life Cycle Infographic (first 3 phases)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Disclosure Language:

Spherion partnered with bloggers such as me for their Emerging Workforce Study program. As part of this program, I received compensation for my time. They did not tell me what to purchase or what to say about any idea mentioned in these posts. Spherion believes that consumers and bloggers are free to form their own opinions and share them in their own words. Spherion’s policies align with WOMMA Ethics Code, FTC guidelines and social media engagement recommendations. 

You Need a Professional Tribe

One of the things I speak about when presenting to HR pros is there need to become part of the ‘Tribe’.  Meaning, if you want to have your seat at the table, you want to gain influence with your leadership team, you need to become part of that tribe.  How do you do that? Well, every tribe is different, you need to figure that out. There is no magical answer, but my guess is they have or do something in common. Find out what that is, and slowly work yourself into that tribe!

HR people struggle with this concept.

“Tim, I just want to do my job and go home!”  Okay.  Then stop bitching that you’re not getting any respect from your executives.  You’re choosing not to be part of that tribe.  Tribes take care of themselves.

You see, most HR pros place themselves on a professional island.  Just Tom Hanks in Cast Away, they’re all by themselves, plus maybe there own little ‘Wilson’ comfort toy picked up at a SHRM conference, a Monster stuffed animal, a Careerbuilder ‘recruiter’ doll, you know the ones!

I have a really, really cool tribe.  In fact, I have many tribes.  First and foremost of have my family.  My HRU tribe is next.  I probably spend more time with them, then my real family on a daily basis!  I also have a number of other personal tribes around youth sports, neighborhood, etc.

My FOT tribe is professionally very cool and satisfying. It’s a group of HR and Talent bloggers who are super smart and snarky, and they make me laugh every day.  I support this tribe and they support me.  They make my professional world better.  They help make me get excited about what I do, and how I do it.  They challenge me to be better. There are many subsets of that tribe, like the 8 Man Rotation tribe, the greater HR blogger tribe, etc.

Tribes are important.

HR and Talent Acquisition pros need to take down their locked HR office doors. Take them right off the hinges.  Get out and start getting involved with professional tribes.  Start in your own organization first.  Do you support a department or client group?  Get into that tribe, now!  Go to lunch with them. Go for drinks after work on Friday.  Bake cookies and bring them to the tribes.  All tribes like to eat and drink! Never underestimate the importance of being a part of that tribe.

I hear from HR pros who tell me all the time, “Tim, ‘they’ just won’t listen to me. How do I get them to listen?”  My first question is to ask them what relationship they have with whomever isn’t listening. That answer is usually, none, or next to none.  They aren’t part of that tribe. That’s the real problem.

I’m not saying it’s easy to break into every tribe. It might not be, but that shouldn’t stop you from trying.  Also, you can create your own professional tribes.  There are so many people just like you that just want to be a part of a tribe.  Go find them! Start a tribe.  You’ll be better for it.

Employee-Zero

All this Ebola talk and Patient-Zero stuff has got me all fired up to be an investigator!  I can’t even imagine the nightmare it must be to try and track back all this illness to the first person.  But, it’s also the coolest thing that they can actually do that!

What if we could trace back to ‘Employee-Zero’?

You know, that one hire, that one employee, that turned it all around for your organization.  I’ve worked at some really successful companies, and I’ve worked at some companies that were successful and then on a downward trend.  I like to think that my hire didn’t put us on a downward trend, but let’s face it, no one really did any due diligence to find out for sure!

You see organizational leadership do this all the time for bad hires and bad results.  I have to say, usually, Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) take the brunt of this.  “Well, we were great before they hired that new CMO, then sales went into the tank and we haven’t been the same since!”  CMOs become Employee-Zero more than any other single employee! They get way too much blame for bad results, and way too much credit for good results!

You almost never hear about Employee-Zero when it comes to good results!  “Yeah, you know when we really took off, it’s when we hired Tim!”  Bad results equal a bad individual hire.  Good results equal a team of good employees and good hires.  Like how that goes!?  We like to place blame on a few, but give credit to many. Welcome to modern day leadership theory.

We measure almost everything in in HR and Talent Acquisition, you would think one of the new shiny data analytics companies would come up with some secret sauce on how to figure out which one of your employees is Employee-Zero.  Why would it be important?  If we could figure out why that one employee, or why certain employees early on made us successful, or put us on the path to success, don’t we really finally solve the hiring equation?

It’s a bit altruistic I know.  The reality is we would be looking at historical data, the times have changed, the conditions have changed, there is no real way of us replicating that exact scenario again to get the same magical results.   Regardless, I think it would be cool to know, I’m a HR geek that way.  Talk about analyzing your hiring!  I’m sure it’s just a matter of time, many organizations obviously have the data, we just need some data scientist to believe it matters.

What do you think?  Do you know who your Employee-Zero is?

5 Signs Your Employees Are Interviewing For Other Jobs

A few weeks back Kris Dunn, Laurie Ruettimann and I did a series for SumTotal called HR Hangouts.  The concept was to get on a Google Hangout for twenty minutes and just talk about real HR things. Basically, watercooler conversations for the modern world.  Quick and easy.  Here’s the actual video (it’s about 20 minutes if you have the time):

We called this one the FOT Turnover Predictor, which was basically what things do your employees begin to do to start showing you they are getting ready to turnover?

We all had different ones, but here are some of my favorites:

1. Parking Lot Calls.  It doesn’t haven’t to be the parking lot, it can be a back stairwell, out a back door to the picnic table behind your building, etc.  Basically, when an employee feels the ‘need’ to start taking calls away from their normal work area, for privacy, something is going on!  Usually, that something, is another job.  As an HR Pro I always address it right away, because it’s obvious and everyone sees you in your car for an ‘hour’ talking during your lunch, when you usually sit at your desk and check Facebook.

2. Banana Republic Wardrobe Update. “Hey, look, Tim has Skinny Jeans!” Wait, isn’t Tim like 40!?  No, Tim isn’t going through a midlife crisis.  Tim is interviewing! Work clothes are like a uniform. No one really wants to spend a ton of money on a uniform, so you tend to wear work clothes way too long.  When you see your employees doing some major updates to their ‘uniform’ there’s a reason – newly divorced, having an affair, interviewing.

3. Crisp White Button Down, Dark dress slacks.  No one normally wears black or navy dress slacks and just a white freshly pressed white dress shirt to work.  Want to know why? It’s a jacket and tie away from being an interview suit! The only other time you see this is when someone will be attending a funeral that day.  So, finding out who is interviewing is usually pretty easy.

4. Professional LinkedIn Updated Headshot.  You know we all get emails when our connections do updates to your profile, right!?  Oh, look, Tim just updated his LinkedIn profile photo from the one of him at the tailgate to one of him with a jacket and tie that looks like it was taken in his dining room with a sheet hanging on the wall…

5. New More Professional Personal Email Address.  Hey, everyone, I just wanted to inform you I will now be using timsackett@gmail , instead of RecruitingGod@gmail – thanks!

 It’s funny how employees really think they are being covert about looking for a new job, when usually everyone in the office knows.  Our worlds are so interconnected now it becomes really difficult to try and go through a traditional job search, when you have a job, without anyone knowing you’re doing it.