Make HR Suck Less

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Are you working in a HR department that sucks?  You know if you are, it’s alright, you can admit it – it’s the first step of changing it.

I bet I talk to over a hundred HR Pros a year that begin the conversation with – “our HR department sucks!” or “my company doesn’t get it when it comes to HR” or “Our HR department is terrible”.   It’s not the outlier, it’s the norm.  So, many HR Pros working in HR functions where the organization has the feeling that “HR” sucks in our company.  If you’re not in one now – great – but chances are you have either been in one before, or eventually you’ll make a “grass is greener” decision and put yourself into this situation.

You know what?  We have the power to make HR Suck Less.  Yes, you do.  Stop it, you do.  No really, you do. Alright that’s enough, just play along with me at least!

Here are the 3 steps to making HR Suck Less:

1.  Stop doing stuff that Sucks.  But Tim! We have to do this stuff.  No you don’t – if your HR shop blew up tomorrow – your organization would still go on.  Over time you’ve “negotiated” to do all this sucky stuff – thinking it would “help” the organization, or give you “influence”, etc.  Stop that.  Give it away, push it out to other departments – start doing stuff that doesn’t suck, more than doing stuff that does suck.  It’s not easy, but it can be done, little by little.

2.  Get rid of people in HR who Suck.  Some people get real comfortable with sucking.  They wear their suckiness around like a badge of honor.  You need to cut the suck out of your department – like cancer!

3. Stop saying that you Suck.  We brand ourselves internally with everything we do – and if you say that you suck at something – the organizational will believe you suck at something.  If you say we are the best in the industry at recruiting our competitions talent away from them – you’ll be forced to live up to that – and little by little you will live up to that and the organization will begin to believe it as well.  Signs and Symbols!

Every single HR Shop who feels they suck – doesn’t have to suck.  If you feel you don’t suck, but everyone else tells you that you suck – you suck.  You’re just delusional and you keep telling yourself things like “we have to do this stuff”, “it’s the law”, “we don’t have a choice”, etc.   This is the first sign you’re comfortable with sucking – you aren’t listening to your organization.

No one has to suck – you can decide to do things in a complete different way. Perception is reality in terms of sucking.  You need to change perceptions, not reality.  You can still accomplish the exact same things, just do it in a way that people think you rock.  Start saying “Yes” to everything – not “No”.  “No” sucks.

Sucking less is a decision – not a skill.  You all have the skills – you just need to make the decision – to stand up and believe – Today we will no longer Suck!

What Do You See When You Look In The Mirror

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Was at ERE last week and got the chance to see John Robinson speak.  Here’s his story:

Very cool story and great example of a person who rises up over all that life can throw at you.  We all need these reminders, more than we usually get them.  Think your life is hard?  How about needing 30 minutes each morning to just be able to put on your clothes. Every. Day.

John said one thing that stuck with me.  After getting dressed in the morning and brushing your teeth, etc. We all at some point take a look in the mirror.  John asked, “What are you looking for when looking in the mirror?”  Do you know?  Ask yourself that same question. What are you looking at?

We are all looking for something wrong that is wrong with us!  That is a conscious decision we make, each and every day, before beginning our day.  We are looking for something wrong with us!  It’s so true, and so crazy!

We get ourselves looking good, ready for our day, all positive stuff, but we take one last look.  Before I leave is there anything wrong with me?  Did I miss something with my hair?  Leave some toothpaste in the corner of my mouth?  Does this shirt look right with these pants?

John’s point is that there’s nothing wrong with any of us.  We are who we are.  Some of us are tall, some are fat, some are black, some have no arms, some have scars.  This makes us different from each other, but not better or worse or ‘wrong’.

So, when you look in the mirror today, do me one favor.  Find something that is right with you, not wrong with you.

Making Your Jobs iPhone 6 Plus

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I think there is an epidemic in our society, and I’m going to blame Apple.  Sure other cell phone companies do the same thing, but Apple was the one who really made this such an issue.  Last week Apple released the latest version of the iPhone and the entire world stood in line to get the latest phone.

I have a iPhone 5s, the new version is iPhone 6 or 6 Plus.  Apparently, my iPhone 5s is now garbage.  But it’s not.  But Apple wants me to think it is, so I get the new version.

The HR Problem in all of this is our employees and managers are doing the same thing with our jobs.  Let me give you an example.  You hire a great candidate last year for an opening you had on your Finance team.  A year later this great hire is doing really good, in your view it was a successful hire.  But there’s a problem.

This great hire wants ‘more’, wants ‘different’, wants a new version of their job, the iPhone 6 plus version!

It’s only been a year an already the employee believes they deserve an upgrade.  Their manager isn’t ‘controlling’ the situation, which is probably the major underlying problem.  The manager is actually feeding the problem by believing it’s also something they need as well.  Let’s face it, the manager hasn’t had an upgrade since you guys were handing out Blackberrys, she is pissed! Where is her iPhone 6 plus level position?!

In terms of HR, this is a major problem across all industries.  No one wants to have your iPhone 4 jobs. People are mocking your iPhone 4 jobs.  They might accept your iPhone 5 jobs, but only because they have no iPhone offers.

What should you do?

Ultimately, this is an expectation level setting leadership discussion.  It starts before the offer is made, before you ‘allow’ someone to accept your offer.  Too often we allow new hires to believe, don’t worry you will always have the latest and greatest version of this job.  When our reality is, we try to upgrade as often as possible, but you shouldn’t expect to always have the latest and greatest.

If you feel that having the latest and greatest is really important for a potential hire, it might not be the right hire for you and your organization. That’s okay.  We get caught up in this belief that we have to hire the most talented candidate, not the candidate who is the most talented for us. Only a few of us can offer the latest versions of jobs, most of us can’t.  The world needs ditch diggers.

The 6 Things You Need To Know To Be Great At HR

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The one great thing I love about going to HR and Talent conferences is that you always get reminded about what really good HR should look like.  It doesn’t mean that your shop will be there, but it gives you something to shoot for.  I’ll admit, sometimes it can be frustrating listening to some HR Pro from a great brand tell you how they ‘built’ their great employment brand through all their hard work and brilliant ideas.  All the while, not mentioning anything about “oh, yeah, and we already had this great brand that marketing spends $100 million a year to keep great!”

Regardless, seeing great HR always reminds me that great HR is obtainable for everyone.  Great HR has nothing to do with size or resources.  It has a lot of do with an HR team, even a team of one, deciding little by little we’re going to make this great!

I think there are six things you need to know to make your HR department great:

1. Know how to ‘sell’ your HR vision to the organization and your executives.  The best HR Pros I know are great storytellers, and in turn great at selling their visions.  If you don’t have a clear vision of what you want your HR shop to look like, how do you expect others to get on board and help you get there.  Sit down, away from work, and write out exactly what you want your HR shop to look like.  Write it long-hand. Write in bullet points. Just start.  It will come.

2. Buy two pairs of shoes: one of your employees and one of your hiring managers. Try them on constantly.  These are your customers, your clients.  You need to feel their joys and pains, and truly live them.  Knowing their struggles will make you design better HR programs to support them.  Support them, not you.

3. Working hard is number 1.  Working smart is number 1A.  Technology can do every single transaction in HR.  Don’t allow tasks and administrative things be why you can’t do great HR.  Get technology to do all of this busy work so you can focus on real HR deliverables.

4. Break something in your organization that everyone hates and replace it with something everyone loves.  This is usually a process of something you’ve always done, and people are telling you it still has to be done that way. Until it doesn’t, and you break it.  By the way, this doesn’t have to be something in HR.  Our leaders and our employees have so many things that frustrate them in our environments.  Just find one and get rid of it.

5. Sometimes the path of least resistance is the best solution. HR people love to fight battles for the simple act of fighting the battle. “NO! It has to be done this way!” “We will NOT allow any workarounds!”   Great HR finds the path of least resistance.  The path of greatest adoption.  The path which makes our people feel the most comfortable, even if it isn’t the path we really, really want to take.

6. Stop being an asshole. You’re in HR, you’re not a Nazi.  Just be nice.  We’re supposed to be the one group in our organization that understands.  Understands people are going to have bad days and probably say things they don’t mean.  Understands that we all will have pressures, some greater than others, but all pressure nonetheless. Understands that work is about 25% of our life, and many times that other 75% creates complete havoc in our world!

Great HR has nothing to do with HR.  Great HR has a lot to do with being a great leader, even when that might not be your position in the organization.

Expecting Expectations

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Down at ERE’s Fall conference this week and was a little surprised at how many session speakers talked about ‘expectations’ in talent acquisitions.  It seems like talent acquisition 101, but by the amount of conversations being had on this one topic it was pretty clear that as a function talent acquisition is still doing a pretty crappy job with expectations.

What do I mean by ‘expectations’?  Here are a few ways we fail to deliver on expectations in talent acquisition:

Not setting expectations with a candidate. We constantly fail as recruiters to set proper expectations with our candidates.  When they will be communicated to and how.  What they should expect from the process.  What they should expect from an offer.  What the job will truly be once they start. What the real culture is, not the culture we wished it was.

Not setting expectations with our hiring managers. Mrs. hiring manager I’m going to work my butt off for you in getting the talent you need but I need… I might need you to respond back to each resume within 24 hours so we ensure we most fast enough to capture great talent.  I might need you to provide feedback on the quality of the talent your seeing. How the process is working or not working for you.  To let me know if something changes with the position I’m working on for you.

Not setting expectations with our peers. I expect as peers, as an internal team, as a department, that we’ll support each other and our function above all.  That means if one of us is failing, we are all failing.  We use positive words when describing our peers and our function.  That I will always make decisions based on making each of us successful in our professional positions.

It seems really, really simple.  But it’s something we fail at so much.

Why?

We fail at setting expectations because establishing expectations isn’t a one way street.  If you are going to set expectations on someone else, you have to be prepared for having expectations set on you.  This becomes a big roadblock.  We love putting accountability on others, but we hate it when accountability is put on us!

So, instead of doing a very simple thing like ensuring we are both on the same page with clear expectations, we do a lot of assuming and just plain poor communicating.

It really might be the one thing you could start doing tomorrow that would have the biggest impact to your functions performance.  We are going to certain expectations for candidates, for hiring managers and for peers, and I’m going to work on what they can expect from me.  We are going to live by these, and we’re going to move the needle in a positive direction on our functions performance.

We waste so much time and resources because we just aren’t being clear on what is expected.

Recruiters! Conferences Don’t Care About You!

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I’m down at ERE’s Fall Conference in Chicago this week.  It’s a conference designed for Talent Acquistion leaders (FYI – they don’t like to be called ‘Recruiters’).  It’s really cool the folks at ERE do a great job putting together great content and work to push the role of Talent Acquisition forward in organizations around the world.

HR Tech also does a great job for HR folks looking for HR Tech.  So does Sourcecon, for people wanting to be better sourcers.  So does TLNT’s Transform for HR leaders. Heck, even SHRM National has some great content.

Besides ERE, though, where does a TA leader or Recruiter go to keep up on their industry. To get better. To challenge and measure themselves and their organizations to get better?  No where, that’s where.

ERE does a fall and spring national conference.  If you don’t have the budget for a national conference, usually $1-2,000 to attend, plus travel which usually doubles the cost, you’re screwed when it comes to getting really good recruiting content.

SHRM has both local and state opportunities for HR Pros to get further development and expand their knowledge base.  Do you have a local recruiting organization or a state recruiting organization that will offer this to you?  Most likely No, unless you live in D.C. (RecruitDC) or Minnesota (Hello Paul!).

It’s crazy when you really stop and think about it.  Almost no where are we really leveraging the minds and the dollars to bring these people together at a state or local level.

I’m in Michigan.  I know right now I could put two days of content together, leverage some awesome Recruiting talent from around the world to come in and speak, and get 250-500 Recruiting/Talent Acquisition Pros from Michigan to attend at $400-500 each.  That’s anywhere from $100-250K just in conference fees, not including probably another $100-200K in sponsors. So, some company isn’t interested in $400-500K!?

Southeast Michigan is begging for technical talent. Organizations would spend the money to spend their TA teams to something like this.  All across the country many areas are hurting for talent and willing to invest (a little) to get their recruiting teams better.  But, most are not willing to have those same teams travel across the country at the price tag of $3,000 each for the same content.

Build it and they will come…just don’t build it too far away!

I see this work on the HR front.  Monthly local SHRM meetings will get 50-100 participants at $50 per meeting for lunch and one hour of content! State conferences give you a day and half of content for $500-750, and most of that is vendors trying to sell you crap.

It just seems insane to me that someone who actually does conference planning for living can’t figure out how to leverage the largest 25 metro areas and put together a calendar of ‘local’ level recruiting conferences.

Like I said, ERE does a good job nationally, their just leaving about 90% of the money that is available out there locally on the table.

Job Descriptions are Just Commercials for Jobs

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Only Employment Lawyers and HR Pros from 1990 believe that Job Descriptions are important legal-type documents that are still needed in 2014.   Most companies have given up on job descriptions (JDs).  At best you’ll find them, today, using ones from back in 1990 when people thought writing JDs was an important part of human resources.  You’ll still find a few HR Tech vendors around trying to make you believe this is an important skill to have.

Our reality, though, is that JDs are really just a marketing tool to get you interested in a position and company. Nothing more, nothing less.

If this is true, 99% of companies are failing at JDs in a major way!

The other 1% are using titles like “Ninja Developer” and think they’ve gotten it solved.  The problem we all share is that we haven’t let marketing just take this part of our business over. It’s a legacy thing.  Somehow we believe only people in HR can write job descriptions.  It’s that ‘legal’ thing again.  We need to make sure we put “EOE” on the bottom, and you know you can’t trust marketing to do that!

Last week a Facebook group I’m in shared the following employment branding commercial:

I know, this isn’t a job description, but do you really think the JDs at Kixeye look like your JDs?  No, they don’t!

I know. I know. Your company can’t do something like this.  You’re probably right.  But you can do something that is more like you. More authentic.  More real. More, well, you.

That’s the problem with your JDs.  They aren’t you.  In fact, I would argue they aren’t anyone!

Your JDs, most JDs, are just a boring list of job requirements, that may not actually be required, and skills needed to do the job, that may not actually be needed to do the job.  Job descriptions have turned into those things most companies are embarrassed to even show you.  Weekly, I have conversations with companies that will either say they don’t have a job description, or the job description is old and updated, or just flat out ask me to help right them a new one!

It’s time HR gave up the job description business and handed it over to marketing where it belongs.

 

Chipotle’s Sweatshop!

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Last week the Chipotle location in State College, PA (home of Penn State University) posted this sign on the door:

“Borderline sweatshop conditions”.

Have you ever gone into a Chipotle restaurant?  You pretty much see most of the kitchen.  There is a little prep area hidden from view, and it looks much like everything else you can see.  Stainless steel, well lighted, air conditioning and ventilation. Chipotle’s food safety is right on par with most major chains, they take it very seriously, the worst thing that can happen to a chain is the bad publicity of a food related illness.

“Borderline sweatshop conditions”.

The hours of this specific location are from 11am to 10pm, Monday through Sunday.  Workers probably get in around 10am, or so, to prep. A manager might have to be in earlier for deliveries and such.  My guess is they’re out each night around 11pm.  Each location will have 3 to 4 managers to cover those hours.  There are two times per day that a Chipotle restaurant is busy, 11:30am to around 1:30pm, and 6pm to around 8pm.  It can be very busy and hectic during those ‘rush’ eating times.

“Borderline sweatshop conditions”.

I would love to send these former Chipotle workers to a real sweatshop.  To a place where they weren’t getting paid $10 plus per hour with free meals, training, safety equipment and potential to move up. To a place where they actually didn’t have the choice to lock up millions of dollars in facilities, equipment and food, and just walk away for the day.  To a place that was actually a sweatshop.

This is why ISIS hates us.

It’s just too easy to tell boys not to hit girls

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A lot of focus on domestic violence this week.  I’ve been challenged to think about this at a number of levels.  I grew up in a household that had domestic violence.  As a boy and young man I watched horrible men hit my mother, and I was unable to stop them.  I grew up with anger, like many young men.  I believe life has a way of putting things back in front of you that you don’t address.  I now have three sons.

There is no reason to ever hit a woman, we are told.

We are also told to “be a man”:

I’m guilty of doing some of this with my sons, and I’m a man whom I would think most people think I’m a pretty progressive father. I encourage kids to do what they want regardless if our society believes it’s masculine or feminine.  Hell, I sang falsetto in my high school rendition of Music Man as part of the barber shop quartet!

I’ve also screamed at my sons while coaching them to stop acting like a ‘girl’, to ‘be a man’, that ‘you’re acting like a bitch’.  I’ve fallen into the masculinity trap in raising my own sons. I’ve actually told my wife, that ‘she doesn’t get it’. “Let me do this”, “they need this”. To her credit, she doesn’t.

I believe we fail boys by telling them “just never hit a woman”.  Like that one statement, just solves it.  Just, takes away years of us trying to make them aggressive, make them ‘men’.  If we don’t show these boys that it’s okay to cry, to show emotion, when they are young, all we are doing is setting them up to eventually ‘pop’.  My Dad use to say that to me.  He could see the emotion building inside me, and me trying to hold it all in, because I was trying to be a man.  “Eventually, that cork is going to pop and everyone better watch out”, he would say.  And it did.

I was challenged with a question this week. What if one of my male employees hit his wife or girlfriend, like Ray Rice hit his fiancee?  Would I do what the Ravens did and fire that employee?

It’s easy to say yes.  That’s the politically correct thing to say.  “Of course! You never hit a woman!”

Then you realize, I might be raising one of those ‘men’.  I might be one of those ‘men’.

The better question to ask, isn’t “would I fire them”, it’s “what would you do to help them?” What would you do to stop this all together?  It starts with boys.  We don’t fix ‘men’ who hit women.  We fix boys believing that the way to deal with their emotions is not through aggression and violence.