Employee-Zero

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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

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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.

T3 – Talent Techie Tuesday

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I’ve decided I need a new series.  My last series – Rap Lyrics That Shaped My Leadership Style – was hugely popular and on a weekly basis still gets way more reads than it should!

I’m calling it T3 (Talent Techie Tuesday).

My goal is to demo and review the coolest Talent Acquisition and Sourcing technology that is out there, and let you all know what I think.  My goal is to do this for a year, 52 straight weeks.  There are thousands of companies in our space, most you have never heard about, or have no idea what they do.  Some are super inexpensive to use, and have huge ROI.  I want to uncover these companies, and show you what they can do.

As a reader you can expect my normal level of content.  That means I’ll be giving you my real take on what I think of the solution and how you can use it.  You can also expect some snark, and grammatical errors – I refuse to not follow my brand!

As a provider of one of these solutions, you can expect me to be fair and really look for the positive ways end users can best leverage your product/service/solution.  If you want to be a part of this, hit me with an email at timsackett@comcast.net.  I’ll schedule you for a one hour demo/Q&A and then I’ll throw it up the next week on my site.   I won’t be accepting any compensation for these reviews, and you, as a vendor, won’t have any editorial say on what I write.

My friend Steve Boese used to own this space at his HR Technology blog. Then he took on the task of running the HR Technology Conference, and the role has made it harder for him to write about individual companies in the HR and Talent space.  I use to love reading his product reviews, and he introduced me to so many great companies. I’m hoping I can carry on the torch.

I love recruiting technology.   In my view all the great innovation is being done in this space, and it’s moving so fast!  I hope I can show you some really cool tools that will change you recruiting and sourcing life!

Stay tuned.

Unlimited Vacation Policies Suck!

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Well, it had to happen, unlimited vacation policies have jumped the shark!  Billionaire Richard Branson announced this week his company, Virgin Group, would begin offering unlimited vacation to all corporate employees. Here’s a statement from Richard:

“Take a holiday whenever you want. Take as much holiday as you want. We’re not going to keep a check on how much holiday you take,” he said in a CNN interview…”Treat people as human beings, give them that flexibility and I don’t think they’ll abuse it. And they’ll get the job done,”

Here’s what Richard knows, it’s been proven time and again, study after study, that companies that implement unlimited vacation policies actually show a decrease in vacation time used, not an increase!  He’s not making a decision based on people, he’s making a decision based on business.  That’s how you become a billionaire, and not a thousandaire!

One other issue I have with the announcement, is him saying ‘we’re not going to be checking”.  Really!?  You aren’t going to have anyone checking who and how much vacation is being used. What if you have some employees not using any vacation at all?  Isn’t that a problem?  Shouldn’t someone be ‘checking’ on this?

Let’s face it, unlimited vacation day policies were garbage the moment companies discovered that the psychology of these policies was causing their employees to actually take less time off, not more time.

We all write and design policies we think will have benefit to our employees and the organization.  It’s a balancing act.  As soon as you come out publicly with a policy and state it’s a ‘benefit’ to your employees, when you know it isn’t a ‘benefit’ to your employees, you lose credibility.

The design of unlimited vacation policies were broken to begin with, but we got sucked into the dream of taking every Friday off, and taking a 3 week holiday in the summer to some island.  Then reality kick us in the teeth and we realized what would actually happen if we tried doing something like that.  It’s hard enough to use the time you had given to you previously, and your leadership team made your employees feel like crap when they did have to use it.

Unlimited time off was designed to be trap.  Let’s see which poor sucker will actually try and use it, and then we know which person is least engaged and not fully on the bus!  No one will say this, because the companies using these policies think they’re saving the world one stupid app at a time.

The reality of most work environment is you are hired to do a specific job.  When you are not there that job doesn’t get done, or at the very least gets put on hold for the period of time you’re gone.  So, you, taking off all this wonderful vacation time, only means your job really doesn’t get done.  This becomes a performance issue, and/or a resource issue, since now we have to hire someone else to pick up your slack while you’re out on ‘holiday’.

How long do you think you’ll keep your wonderful job, with unlimited vacation, when your organization is having to bring in other people to do the job you are supposed to be doing?

Yep. Not long.

What’s a better alternative?

Design the amount of time off around business needs.  I’m in the Midwest, most companies are a ghost town between December 23 and January 2 or so, depending on the calendar. They are also empty Thanksgiving weekend.  Throw in a few days around July 4th, and a week for spring break, and you have almost 3 full weeks of vacation time.  Your employees now have sick time, doctors and dentists appointments, a day here or there for personal business (banking, family, etc.), there goes another week.  How about a real vacation?  You know the kind where you sit at home with a list of a thousand things to do, but spend four days watching Netflix!  Now, we’re at 5 weeks.

5 weeks of total time off, probably works for about 99% of people in the world.  Anymore and it’s hard to actually do your job.

HR’s Ebola Crisis Plan!

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Wait for it…

Any minute now some executive is going to come into your office and ask ‘you’ what you’re doing about this Ebola outbreak!

I’m not trying to slight the importance and the tragedy that disease is currently on path to creating in West Africa, it’s horrific.  But our American media is bringing this to hysteria levels in the states!  As of my time writing this, there are 3 confirmed cases of Ebola in the U.S. and one death.

Yesterday in the U.S., approximately, this many people died from:

  • Heart Disease: 1,637
  • Cancer: 1,574
  • Stroke: 354
  • Accidents: 331
  • The Flu: 139

That’s each day people!

But, you my fellow HR Pro are going to have to answer this question very, very soon.  What is ‘your’ plan to address Ebola?

Not, hey how about we actually fund our Wellness program properly and maybe we can really save some of our employees from what’s going to kill them!  Eating crappy food, smoking, drinking themselves to death, texting while driving, NOT getting the freaking Flu shot we pay for!  I could go on…

But, here’s your plan for Ebola, it will keep your executive off your back, so you can get back to real work:

Step 1 – We are going to insist all of our employees get Flu Shots this season. Why? Because Ebola symptoms mirror Flu symptoms, so it’s just a matter of time until Tammy, our inhouse hypochondriac, comes to me telling me she has Ebola and the entire staff freaks out!

Step 2 – We are going to communicate with our employees about the realities of how one catches Ebola.  The CDC has many of these documents and videos.

Step 3– We are going to tell our employees if they have a fever, to stay home until it’s gone.  Also, let them know that fevers actually can happen on any day, not just Mondays and Fridays.

Step 4 – We are going to give some statistics about the risks of one of our employees catching Ebola in cute little pictures.  Like one that shows a person getting struck by lightening and eaten by a shark at the same time. You have more of a chance of this happening than contracting Ebola in the U.S.

Step 5 –  You will keep asking the executive who asked you about your Ebola Crisis Plan if they are feeling well, because they don’t look well?!?!

Seriously, though, get your employees to get a Flu shot this season!  It might be the one thing that will help them out. Not against Ebola, but with actually keeping themselves healthy.  They don’t need help from Ebola, yet.

The Problem With Executives Estimating Risk

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I harp on my peers when I speak about our role as HR Pros.  I tell HR Pros it is not our job to eliminate risk, it’s our job to advise risk, then let our executives make choices based on that perceived risk, with our influence.   It sounds really good when I say it live!  It sounds thought provoking and wise.  People take notes.

I might be wrong about all of it, though.

Daniel Crosby, Ph.D. wrote a post over on LinkedIn called You Are Not a Snowflake were he cited a study done by Cook College that explored unrealistic optimism. Here’s some of it:

Cook College performed a study in which people were asked to rate the likelihood that a number of positive events (e.g., win the lottery, marry for life) and negative events (e.g., die of cancer, get divorced) would impact their lives. What they found was hardly surprising—participants overestimated the likelihood of positive events by 15% and underestimated the probability of negative events by 20%.

What this tells us is that we tend to personalize the positive and delegate the dangerous. I might win the lottery, she might die of cancer. We might live happily ever after, they might get divorced. We understand that bad things happen, but in service of living a happy life, we tend to think about those things in the abstract.

Knowing this, it now makes me uneasy to let our executives just go off and make decisions on risk!

HR Pro: “Well, you know if we fire Ken, he’s probably going to sue us and we’ll lose.”

Executive: “Let’s go ahead with it.” (in their mind thinking “we won’t get sued, that’s only other companies who treat their employees like crap. we’re great”)

HR Pro: “Are you sure!? From my experience we are definitely going to be hanging out there on this one.”

Executive: “Yes, I’m sure. Shoot Ken!” (again thinking, “Ken will probably thank us for finally put him out of his misery”)

That is just one silly example.  We constantly mitigate risk in HR.  On a daily basis we are making decisions based on positive and negative outcomes.  If we know we are predispositioned to believe the positive is more likely going to happen, when statistically speaking it won’t more than negative, and we are predispositioned to believe negative things won’t happen, when they likely more than we believe, we are really making some bad decisions over time!

I’m a very confident person.  I’m also decisive.  This makes this concept very concerning to me!  I like to believe in positive outcomes. I don’t believe bad stuff will happen, or if it does I’ll be able to conquer it!

So, HR pros forget what I tell you.  Stop risk in all manners that you can in your organization! Don’t advise.  Mitigate! If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably already had this come back and bite you a time or two.  Also, know you won’t be very well liked taking this course of action, but that’s something else I like to advise to HR pros in which is probably wrong…

ACA Complaince – HR, You’re In Trouble!

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I wanted to title this – “The most boring post ever!” But you guys know I couldn’t write a boring post!

Going through my debrief of HR Tech and I had a meeting with ADP regarding health care reform compliance.  Yes. It was as boring as it sounds!  But there’s a catch, this is stuff that the real HR folks are really concerned about, especially small and medium sized HR shops (50 – 999 employees).  Let’s face it, we don’t have the staff or budget to really feel 100% confident we know what we really need to be doing!  It’s something that can make us look like fools to our executives.  So, I wanted to pass along some stuff I think might help.

ADP has data coming out of their ears! They surveyed our executives in the SMB space and here’s what they are saying:

  1. 69% are concerned with the cost of health coverage and other benefits
  2. 54% are concerned with health care reform legislation

I’ll bet you that 54% is really 100%, but the other 46% believe you (HR Pro) have it under control, and most of us probably don’t!

ACA is confusing, and it seems like a moving target.  Most vendors will tell you they can help, but when you really look into the folks who are giving them the information to give you, they’re really no different than you or I.  What I really liked about my meeting with ADP is they have the resources to throw some really, really smart people at this, and they have the size and influence to probably get insight directly from those writing the legislation.  With great size, comes great access!

ADP has launched a new solution called ADP Health Compliance.  ADP Health Compliance combines Software as a Service (SaaS) with rigorous managed services staffed by ACA experts who can help to enable compliance while managing all of the complex regulatory requirements: Eligibility, Affordability and Regulatory Management.  And you don’t even need to be an ADP client to sign up to use this solution!

“The ACA has transformed the practice of workforce management into a fluctuating system of checks and balances, and one missed step can be the difference between compliance and significant financial penalties,” said Saliterman.  “ADP Health Compliance’s managed service feature is truly unique and can provide large employers with the expertise that only a leader in tax and compliance can deliver.”

“In our restaurants, the vast majority of our employees are variable hour workers whose time will change shift to shift, week to week.  We need to constantly monitor employees hours—12 months a year—to determine who is required to be offered  health coverage benefits and whether or not that coverage is affordable, which can be a heavy lift,” said Bruce Clark, Chief Financial Officer of Hooters Management Corporation, an early adopter of ADP Health Compliance.  “Restaurant operators are good at running restaurants, but that doesn’t mean that they’re good at complicated compliance tasks.  Our plan is to keep doing what we do and do that great, and we’ll leave ACA administration to our expert partner…“

Yeah, ACA isn’t sexy.  It’s not employee engagement platforms, and digital interviewing and big data.  ACA compliance is where HR Pros earn their chops, it’s real-life HR, and it’s something we can’t afford to get wrong.  ADP isn’t paying me.  I think they have a product a lot of you could actually use, and it protects your organization.  Check it out. It’s probably worth your time to take a look and see where you might be at risk!

Dream Jobs Are A Lie

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I hate that we are meant to feel that we should have our dream job.  It’s drilled into our society at nausea from mass media, our celebrities, our teachers and spiritual leaders. It’s all basically complete bullshit, but we eat it up like it came directly from G*d.

It didn’t.  Whichever G*d you believe in, she/he never said ‘Thou shalt have your dream job’, never.

Celebrities stand on award stages and tell our children to never give up their dreams, you can do whatever you want.  No.  No, they can’t.  Let’s face it, Mr. Celebrity, you were given a gift, most people don’t have that same gift, so stop telling my kid they can be you.

I know this upsets some people.  They love to live in a fantasy world that someday they stop working their 9 to 5 and start being a fairy princess.  I hate to tell you this, but you won’t.  Sorry, Billy, you’re an overweight short kid with bad eye sight and irrational fear of clouds.  You won’t be the next NFL Hall of Fame quarterback.  But you might be a really awesome Accountant, and that’s not a bad gig.

I don’t have my dream job.

I have a job I like a lot.

My dream job would be to make a ton of money managing and/or coaching a professional sports team. I would take basketball or baseball.  I really think I would be happy with either.

I know that won’t ever work out for me, so I don’t spend much time really thinking about it.  It would be stupid for me to do so.  But that’s my ‘dream’.

If it’s my dream, shouldn’t I give up everything I have and chase it?  Give up my well-paying, really good job.  Give up my house.  My kids college education.  My retirement account.  I mean this is MY dream!

Mr. Celebrity said I can reach my dreams.  We all can.  We just have to want it more.  We just have to not give up striving for it.

I met a person last week who said he had his ‘dream job’.  It was a good job, but he also told me he missed his kids, because his dream job made him travel a lot.  He also said his dream job had him working harder than he ever had prior.  The longer he talked, the longer it didn’t sounded like a dream job, and the more it sounded just like every other job.

The concept of dream jobs is bullshit.  That’s okay.  The sun will still come up tomorrow, even if you tell yourself I’ll never have my dream job.  You’ll be alright.  You can still have a really good, awesome life.

Be wary of someone telling you to chase your dream job.

The Voice – Picking Leaders

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I like watching the TV show The Voice.

It’s singing competition show that has four famous singer judges who compete against each other by picking teams of singers who compete against each other.  The Voice doesn’t allow the professional judges/coaches actually physically see the participants before they’re selected.

It’s a ‘blind’ audition. They can hear them, and have to decide if they want the singer based upon their voice, not how they look. It’s really well produced and the people are talented and hungry.

One thing happens on the voice with the four judges every so often.  A singer will be so good that all four judges will turn around and want the singer to select them to be their coach.  This causes the judges to ‘sell’ themselves on why the singer should pick them over one of the other judges to be their coach.

Within these scenarios is the heart of great leadership and determining what people really want.

Adam Levine, the lead singer from Maroon5, is the best at ‘winning’ these scenarios.  He definitely let’s the person know he wants them on their team, but he also gives them some very critical feedback on what he will do to make them better.  He almost always wins.

He’s figured out that why people definitely love to be told their great, they also want critical feedback as well.  Most of us have this deep need for people to be truthful with us.  “Thanks, I appreciate the kind words, but what do you really think? And, how can I get even better?”

It’s so freaking simple, it’s insane!

Still, most of our leaders, especially new leaders, are unwilling to understand this concept.  Critical feedback won’t push your employees away from you, if you can learn how to deliver in a manner where the employee can see the benefit to them.  Of course, this is based on trust and respect.

It’s also based on a belief from the employee that you as a leader have only one goal. To help make them better.  Period.  It’s not about me showing I’m smarter, or know more, or I’m in control.  It’s only about me helping you get better.

Want your employees to ‘select’ you as their leader?  Make them a better version of who it is they want to be.

 

Is Your Personal Strength Your Biggest Weakness?

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I’ve always been a huge fan of adult learners ignoring their weaknesses and focusing on bettering their strengths.  This goes against almost every single OD department in the corporate world where employee weaknesses have to be improved at all costs!  Adult learning studies have proven time and again that after a certain point in a person’s life, usually once reaching adulthood, focus on improving a weak skill will still only slightly improve even with focused training. But, you can see better increases when focusing on bettering an adults strengths.

Let me give you a personal example, I’m terrible a grammar, always have been.  I see grammar rules as something that are only important to high school English teachers. But, I love to write! Now, I could spend hours on improving my grammar, or I could spend those hours on writing better creative content, then hiring an editor to fix the crap I write.   Seems simple enough.  Hire an editor.  Bam, people will think I’m a better writer.

But what happens when you overuse a personal strength?

I know quite a few people who have been told and given performance feedback that you have “great attention to detail” (by the way I love these folks – I hire them on my team – because they help catch my grammar mistakes!).  You get told this, you take pride in it, and you now “really” focus on it, because that is what you’re known for.

Your company has a big important project and everyone needs to deliver. Major time crunch.  You get the deal.  You become involved because you want every detail perfect and you want to ensure nothing leaves with an error. Seems good, right?  Except for the fact that you can’t deliver on time because nothing is good enough.  You keep sending stuff back to get better, to get perfect and you miss deadlines.  One small example in our normal corporate lives, but it shows how a person’s strength, something they are applauded for, can become a weakness.

Do you know what your personal strength’s are?  I bet you probably do, but do you know if you are relying on these strengths so much, they are becoming your enemy?

I’ve been told a strength of mine is that I “will tell it like it is”.  Not a bad strength to have on a leadership team – until it is.  There are times and places where “telling like it is” is very valuable, and their are times “when telling it like is is” is very dangerous.  Remember, not all of your strengths will always be strengths!