$43/hr Fast Food Worker!

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There is this new, hip burger joint in Detroit metro called Moo Cluck Moo (alright, it’s a SmashBurger knock-off) which is becoming famous for paying it’s workers a minimum of $15/hr.  Okay, it’s not $43/hr, but the title was to prove a point and ask a question.  If you haven’t eaten at one of these new burger joints – they’re great! I mean great if you love a great burger, fries and shake and a ‘fast food’ meal bill of $50 for a family of four!  BTW – the sweet potato fries at SmashBurger will be on my death row menu.

How much should a fast food worker be paid?

Is $15/hr really a living wage?

$15/hr equates to about $30,000 before taxes.  Take out taxes,  health insurance co-pays, etc., and for arguments sake, let’s say that $30,000 is now $22,000.  $22,000 is fairly realistic, right?

So, $22,000 is about $1800 per month.  Let’s break down the expenses:

Crappy Apartment – $600/month

Crappy car payment – $250/month

Crappy car gas – $200/month

Crappy car insurance – $100/month

iPhone 5 – $100/month (you know this is true!)

Crappy Apartment utilities (electric, gas, cable) – $150/month

Food (other then your fast food meals you get while working) – $300/month

That’s $1700.  Let’s say we’ll leave the extra $100 for emergencies.

Is this living?

Now, let’s look at it from McDowell’s standpoint.  Unlike their ‘fast food’ friends at Moo Cluck Moo – which average check for a family of four is north of $40.  The average check for a family of four to eat at McDowell’s is probably closer to $25.  That extra $15 per check – does a lot.  It definitely makes it easier to pay $15/hr.

My point isn’t that we should be paying fast food workers more.  Someone choosing a career in the Fast food arts shouldn’t expect to make a ‘living wage’, they should expect to make a wage you can’t live on.  I love that Moo Cluck Moo is pushing the envelop in paying service workers and showing others that it can be done, on a small scale.  Can McDowell’s do it?  They could.  Are you willing to pay $15-20 more per meal for your family to eat at McDowell’s?  No, you’re not.  You will at Moo Cluck Moo – because it’s cool and hip and good.  But you can’t do that all the time.  It’s not sustainable on your living wage as a teacher, or accountant.  So, you sometimes have to go the cheaper route and eat at McDowell’s.

Simple economics will tell us that selling $.99 Double Cheeseburgers does not allow you to pay your hourly staff $15/hr and stay in business.  Charge $5 for that Double Cheeseburger and you can now pay $15/hr wages.  You will also have a drastic decrease in customers, so you’ll have to layoff most of your staff.  But those who remain will certainly be happy making $15/hr!

You can’t have it Fast — Good — and Cheap.  You must give up something.  Want McDowell’s to pay their workers a ‘living wage’?  Show them you won’t go away in droves when they double their prices.  You won’t do that.  If you won’t change — why should they change?

 

 

Do you follow terminated employees on Twitter?

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Did you see what Mike Tomlin, Pittsburg Steelers Head Coach, did last week to the players who didn’t make the final cut of the team?

Here it is from Deadspin: ”

This is pretty much the perfect 21st century NFL story, pairing the coldly impersonal nature of personnel moves with the vapidity of social media relationships. After the Steelers made their final roster cuts, head coach Mike Tomlin promptly unfollowed them on Twitter.”

First, let me say, I love this!   As a fan of most sports, there is nothing more I love than to see a coach go all in with his team, and that’s exactly what this is!   I’ve got 53 on the roster — I’m following 53 on Twitter.  That’s my team.  We live together, We Tweet together!  Whether it’s athletics or business, you want your team to focus and support the team you’ve got.  If that means making a gesture like unfollowing someone a social network, so be it.  We want to win!

Leadership is all about signs and symbols.  While this might seem small and insignificant in the larger scheme of running an NFL team, I love the detail of it!

So, what about you?  Do you unfollow (FB, Twitter, etc.) past employees who leave your organization?

 

Do You Have A Resume Commerical?

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Being that I run a recruiting agency, in the Technology space, I always find it funny to read and hear people talk about how ‘resumes are dead’.  It seems that if you talk to anyone who thinks they know and understand the IT industry, this is especially true.  CIO Magazine recently had an article: IT Hiring: Your Text Resume Is Soooo Last Century, which laminates on which type of resume is now the ‘in’ thing.  From the article:

“It’s no coincidence that LinkedIn recently began encouraging its users to amp up their profiles with videos, illustrations, photography and presentations. And Toronto startup Vizualize.me has attracted 200,000 users to its tool, still in beta, that turns text-based resumes into online infographics.

“People are open to new formats, new ways of presenting credentials,” says John Reed, senior executive director of Robert Half Technology, an IT staffing firm based in Menlo Park, Calif. “People are trying to figure out how to stand out in the crowd, how to bring life to their profile and experience, and they’re using social media tools to do that.”

Reed says that neither he nor his colleagues have seen a lot of applicants submitting videos yet. When they do, they function more like cover letters than resumes. “The videos are ‘let me introduce myself before you look at my resume,'” Reed explains. “The companies look at it and say, ‘That’s cool, that’s an interesting twist, that makes the candidate stand out.'”

So, are resumes dead?  I don’t think so.  Here’s what happens, as an industry heads toward ‘zero’ unemployment like the IT industry is heading, hiring managers, recruiters, HR, etc. become more open to anyway they can find talent.  This means you’ll run into many ‘candidates’ who are not really actively looking — those all powerful Passive Candidates — and don’t have a traditional resume.  Many of these folks will be open to talk to you, but really don’t want to take the time to put a resume together.  In a traditional recruitment process, 90% of Recruiters would walk away from these candidates – “Well, if you won’t put a resume together, then you must not want to really work here!”  This is why so many people hate recruiters and HR!  Because we say stupid stuff like that.

The best recruiters and HR Pros will find a way to get these candidates in the door without a ‘traditional’ resume.  As the article in CIO points out – video is one way to do this.  I’m a huge video fan, not necessarily as a resume replacement, but as a compliment to your resume.  Where HR, Recruiting, and/or a hiring manager might skip over your resume because of some illogical preconceived notion of what they think they want, many will see a short 90 second video introduction of a candidate and say “let’s get this person in for a face-to-face!”  That’s very powerful.  Whereas a passive candidate might not be willing to take an hour or two piecing together a traditional resume, most are willing to join a Google Hangout for a couple of minutes to introduce themselves and give some highlights.

It’s like a commercial in very modern day sense, and does what your resume might not be able to.  It’s not perfect.  Just like a resume, a short video might attract you to a candidate you ultimately find out is not a good fit for your position.  The video resume commercial does, though, give you one more short piece to the puzzle, and honestly still so few people are doing it, it will help set the candidate apart, and your HR/Recruiting shop apart from the competition.

Is HR Going The Way Of The Travel Agent?

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Quick: What is your first thought when you think of Travel Agents?

Mine? 1970’s and 1980’s, women working in strip malls, with sunny vacation posters on the windows selling over-priced-all-inclusive vacations and cruises to Mr. and Mrs. Middle America.

Quick: What is your first thought when you think of HR Managers?

Wait! Don’t answer that.

Time had a great piece recently of how Travel Agents might be the most misunderstood occupation in America today.  Most people, if you asked, would believe travel agents are no longer needed.  We have the Internet!  Expedia. Orbitz. Travelocity. Kayak. Why would anyone with half a brain ever use a Travel Agent?!  But, wait.  Here are some facts from the article on the travel industry:

– 8,000 travel agencies in the U.S.

– 64% of all air travel is booked through travel agents – that’s $84 Billion worth!

-64% of all cruises are still booked through agents

Why use an agent?  They give you the customer service you don’t get from an internet site, and solve travel problems.  Does it cost more? Yep.  You pay for what you get.  I had a young employee recently who booked a trip to Vegas on her own. Cheap airline, limited flights. Weather became a problem and flights were cancelled.  Next flights not for another couple of days.  No, we won’t move you to another airline – it’s an act of G*d.  No, we won’t give you your money back, we can give you a voucher for another flight.  No, your deposit for your hotel won’t be refunded.  Vegas trip blown up.  Travel agents wouldn’t have booked that trip.

Does this remind you of any other industry? (Hint: HR)

HR Technology is moving the way of complete manager self-service.  Need to add an employee to your staff – we’ve got a program for that.  What about onboarding that new employee? Got you covered!  Performance Management? Come on, we specialize in that — give us something challenging!  Training? Bingo. What can’t HR Tech currently do, that we do in HR?!

“Hello, Travel Agent, I need to book a trip out of HR!”

What you find out quickly, is your value to an organization is not measured in the ‘tactics’ you do.

Travel agents aren’t about booking your flights. Yeah, they do that, but you pay them for when your trip begins to blow up.  When there’s a mile long line at the airport desk to re-book, and you make one call and have it done for you.  Get to a horrible hotel two thousand miles from home?  Don’t worry, Mr. Sackett, we’ll get you into something nice tonight.

HR isn’t about all those jobs that the tech can do.  HR is about what we can do to help our organizations become more successful.  It’s about having the one on one conversation with the new manager who isn’t getting the most out of her team, and helping her get more out of that team.  It’s about helping a star employee understand their role in the future and why ‘our’ organization values them.  It’s about ensuring our mission, values and vision is carried out across all parts of our organization.

HR technology companies can create a piece of software that can do just about anything.  What that software can’t do is replace your interactions you have within your organization.  Get out of your office today and go touch some employees, properly.

 

 

How Many Hugs Is Too Many?

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My post on The Rules About Hugging At Work is one of my most read posts ever.  Check it out.

As you know – I’m a hugger.  If we meet and you believe we are friends because we connected on Twitter 2 years ago — well — you’re getting a hug! That’s how I play.

I wanted to give you an update to my Rules About Hugging At Work.  Some of you know I have 3 sons, 16, 15 and 10.  Apparently, your kids listen to you when you talk around the house.  My ten year old started 4th grade this past week and his teachers felt like they needed to add some Sackett Hugging Rules to the 4th grade — they’re not as much rules as they are limitations.  I know what you’re thinking — No — we don’t go to a Communist private school.  I send my kids to public schools, I mean it did wonders for my grammar, so they should be just fine.

Yep, my boy Coop (seriously how could you resist him in the pic above!?) likes to hug like his old man.  What did ‘Dad’ do about it when he heard the ‘fuzz’ came down on my little man?  Not a freaking thing!  I told him to hug away – just follow the rules:

– No bathroom hugs

– No hugs from behind

– Only linger if you feel the other party is hugging back.

What kind of a world do we live in where a 10 year old boy is told he’s hugging too much?  He the sweetest, most kind, kid I know.  I’m glad to know this is how we turn our young boys into men — hugging limitations.  Well played America.

Enjoy Ari Gold – he gets it – no one ever stopped him from hugging! (NSFW)

Has HR Evolved Enough To Allow Napping?

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Have you read any studies recently, or in the past, that said how beneficial naps are to high performance?  I bet you have.  Here’s one I read this week from the Wall Street Journal:

 “In a 2012 study in the journal Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, researchers split 36 college-aged students into three groups. Each group learned a memory task, pairing words on a screen with a sound. Afterward, one group had 60 minutes to nap, another 10 minutes. The final group didn’t sleep.

Upon retesting, the napping groups fared better, as expected, said Sara Alger, lead author of the study and a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Notre Dame.

More interesting, she noted, was that on further testing, including a week later, the 60-minute group performed far better than the 10-minute group, which now performed as poorly as the non-napping group. The researchers concluded that slow-wave sleep—only experienced by the 60-minute nappers—is necessary for memory consolidation.”

The benefits of napping is one of those things that we as a society, for the most part, completely agree with.  You never really ever hear anyone argue against it.  Naps are good.  So, why is napping at work still considered taboo?

Maybe a better question is: do you currently work at an organization where you would feel comfortable taking a nap, at work?

For the vast majority of you ready this the answer is ‘No’.  While the benefits of napping to productivity are unquestioned, we (American Society) still see napping as a sign of weakness, of fragility, of not being able to handle it.  There are a few of those ‘hip’ Silicon Valley companies who ‘allow’ napping, but for the most part who will not find napping rooms in most American companies.  You will not find HR in American companies encouraging their teams to ‘shut-it-down’ at 2pm and having nap time across the company.

Don’t get me wrong, you will find American employees sleeping on the job!  But don’t worry, HR will ‘handle’ that!  I myself have fired employees for ‘sleeping’ on the job.  The issue isn’t if napping is good for productivity.  The issue is those employees getting fired for sleeping are doing it without consent or permission.

I wonder if employees, I even think about my own team, if told — “Hey, from now on out you can take a one hour nap at work!” — would they take advantage?  I’m sure they would take advantage if they were told it wouldn’t effect their start and end times.  What if you told your workforce — “We are now working 8am to 6pm, but from 2pm-3pm we’ll all be taking a nap!”  How would that go over in your workplace.  I have a feeling that ‘taking a nap’ would become a very negative ‘policy’ change!

So, what say you HR Pros — Has HR (In America) Evolved Enough To Allow Napping at Work?

I say, No!

 

 

There Are 2 Kinds of Leaders

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College football season is upon us and one of things I enjoy most is reading all the leadership articles written about college football coaches.  These types of articles come out in two ways during the year: 1. preseason when everyone is still in love with their coaches; 2. post-season when certain teams and coaches overachieved.   GQ came out with one recently on one of the most polarizing coaches, and most successful coaches, in college football, Nick Saban.  People assume I hate Nick because I’m a Michigan State fan and he left us to go to another college football team, LSU, that was in a better ‘football’ conference and had more tradition.  I don’t hate Nick.  I was disappointed he left, because he was good!

Nick Saban is probably the most hated coach in college football because his teams kick everyone’s butt!  3 out of the last 4 national championships and favored to win another this year.  He doesn’t joke around with the media and he never looks pleased.  Here are some tidbits from the GQ article:

“A few days after Alabama beat LSU to win the 2012 national championship, Rumsey and Saban were on the phone together…The two men almost never discuss football—Rumsey is the rare Tuscaloosan who doesn’t know or care much about the game, which, he suspects, has something to do with why he and Saban have become friends. But given that his golf buddy had just won the national championship, Rumsey figured he ought to say a few words of congratulations. So he did, telling Saban his team had pulled off an impressive win.

“That damn game cost me a week of recruiting,” Saban grumbled into the phone.”

Being upset over missing a week’s worth of recruiting because you had to play, and win, the national championship.  HR folks should love that.  It’s about the process.  Have the right process and the results will happen, but please don’t change or stop my process!

“Saban’s guiding vision is something he calls “the process,” a philosophy that emphasizes preparation and hard work over consideration of outcomes or results. Barrett Jones, an offensive lineman on all three of Saban’s national championship teams at Alabama and now a rookie with the St. Louis Rams, explains the process this way: “It’s not what you do, it’s how you do it.”

Taken to an extreme—which is where Saban takes it—the process has evolved into an exhausting quest to improve, to attain the ideal of “right is never wrong.” At Alabama, Saban obsesses over every aspect of preparation, from how the players dress at practice—no hats, earrings, or tank tops are allowed in the football facility—to how they hold their upper bodies when they run sprints. “When you’re running and you’re exhausted you really want to bend over,” Jones says. “They won’t let you. ‘You must resist the human need to bend over!'”…

Jones says that while all the talk of “the process” can sometimes seem mysterious—the cultic manifesto of that demonic head coach—it’s actually quite straightforward.

“He pretty much tells everybody what our philosophy is, but not everyone has the discipline to actually live out that philosophy,” Jones says. “The secret of Nick Saban is, there is no secret.”

I think there are two kinds of leaders in the world:

1. Charismatic Leader — This is the leader you love and will follow over the edge of a cliff.  You feel connected to this leader.  Your organization might be very good results with this type of leader, but that isn’t necessarily a guarantee.  99% of folks think they want this kind of leader. It’s Steve Jobs, Tony Hsieh and Barack Obama. They capture your heart and mind.

2. Directed Leader — This leader seems more aloof when you meet them one-on-one, but they have laser like focus of your organization’s vision and mission, and they will not let anyone or anything take your off course.  In the long term, if you buy-in to the vision and get to know this leader, you’ll do more than follow them over a cliff, you’ll throw others over the cliff for them!  Saban falls into this camp. So would Abraham Lincoln.

I don’t see these two leaders being at polar ends of leadership. They are actually running parallel, like two behavioral traits, because the best leaders have some of each. Steve Jobs could hold the stage, but he also had great vision.  Some leaders just have more of one bucket than the others.  To be a directed leader, to be so focused in on a singular vision, you have to be a little odd, a little different from what people perceive  you have to be a little odd, a little different from what people perceive as normal. The fact is, most people don’t have the capacity to have the kind of focus it takes to be as successful as Nick Saban. One last thing from the GQ article:

“Saban is a fit 61, owing in part to regular pickup basketball games with staff, a frenetic pace on and off the field, and a peculiarly regimented diet. He doesn’t drink. For breakfast, he eats two Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies; for lunch, a salad of iceberg lettuce, turkey, and tomatoes. The regular menu, he says, saves him the time of deciding what to eat each day, and speaks to a broader tendency to habituate his behaviors.”

Same meal every day, so you spend no extra time or energy even thinking about what to eat.  Focus. Laser focus.  Does your leader have this?

 

Should Colleges Give Job Seekers A Refund?

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Can we all dispel the notion that Colleges and Universities are non-profit institutions?  They’re non-profit like hospitals and churches are non-profit!  Have you seen what those types of organizations are building nowadays!   These types of non-profits are not really in business to make a profit, but to grow and keep growing.  They don’t have a ‘profit’ for the simple fact is that they spend each dollar on their ‘mission’, which mainly entails continued growth.

Many recent college grads who started college believing a college education was a way to a high paying, or at least a normal paying, career have become disenchanted with this notion.  College graduates find it more and more difficult to find good entry level professional employment.  Colleges and University marketing machines keep churning out the ‘dream’, though, with little disregard that this graduates can actually get a job.  You see, universities aren’t job placement agencies, they are educational institutions.  People get confused with this – it’s great marketing.  It’s like when that creepy old guy buys the Corvette with the notion he’ll be sexier – he’s not!   You bought into the commercial – “Come to our School! You’ll have a great career!” Not necessarily!

By the way, the U.S. Circuit Courts agrees with the Universities.  You, college graduate, have no right of an expectation that you’ll get a job from attending a certain university. Here is what the courts have to say:

“The court ruled Tuesday in a case involving a dozen unhappy graduates from Thomas M. Cooley Law School, which has campuses across Michigan and in Tampa, Fla.

The graduates claimed they were fooled by rosy employment statistics published by the school. The appeals court, however, said Michigan’s consumer protection law doesn’t apply, and the graduates put too much reliance on Cooley’s job survey of other graduates.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, 3-0, affirmed a similar decision by a federal judge in Grand Rapids…

The graduates who sued Cooley said they had difficulty finding full-time, paid jobs. Shane Hobbs of Pennsylvania graduated in 2010 but has worked as a substitute teacher and at a golf course. Danny Wakefield of Utah graduated in 2007 but ended up managing the delivery of phone books, according to the 6th Circuit decision.The Cooley graduates accused the school of fraud by reporting in 2010 that 76 percent of graduates were employed within nine months. The graduates claimed that should be interpreted as full-time positions requiring a law degree. But it actually included jobs outside law.”

Can you imagine if most companies ran their business like this?   Yeah, I know you just paid $30K for that new car to take you to and from work – but we can’t guarantee that will actually happen!  Would you buy the car?  No, you wouldn’t.   What if a university ran a commercial saying:

“Hey! Come to our university and we Guarantee that you’ll get a job in your chosen career path degree, or we’ll give you a 100% tuition refund!”

Would that change where you went to school?

But don’t fret recent grads, if you didn’t get a job with that degree you just got – the university will more than willing to take you back for that graduate degree! Then you’ll really get a job! Or not – there’s no guarantees!

The Crack of the Bat

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I’ve been around baseball my entire life.  Started out playing little league, moved to high school and my sons all started playing when they were 4 and 5 years old.  I was never good enough to play past high school, but I love the game.  As Labor Day is upon us I recall sitting out at the campfire with my folks listening to the great Ernie Harwell call the Tiger’s games on AM radio.

Great announcers make the game come alive in your head.  You can actually see your Tiger rounding third, hear the crack of the bat and imagine the play at the play as if you were sitting right there watching the game.  The announcer made the game larger than life, and when you finally arrived at the stadium to watch a game in person the experience was just like you imagined it.  No letdown, no hype, you walk through the tunnel and arrive in heaven.  The grass is greener and uniforms are as white as clouds.  You can smell the hot dogs and the cotton candy.

I know most folks today love football, I’m also a huge fan.  But going to a baseball game takes me back to my childhood.  It’s my religion.

Enjoy your holiday weekend.  Go take your family to a ball park.  Teach your kids how to keep score with paper score sheet and pencil.  Walk around the stadium so you can see the entire thing.

I miss listening to Ernie. Check out Macklemore’s tribute to his childhood announcer, Dave Niehaus, and go to iTunes and buy the song, the proceeds all go towards the boys and girls club:

Being a Minority Can Cost You in your Career

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Surprise, Surprise, Surprise!

This just in from the very smart folks at NPR – being a minority might have a negative effect on your career! Really!?

Actually, NPR presents a social science study from the National Bureau of Economic Research that does a very good job explaining what we all already know – but want to easily push off as racism.  From the article:

Economists have long noted that multiple companies in an industry often congregate in an area — think of movie companies in Hollywood or investment bankers on Wall Street — and observed that these firms become more profitable. Indeed, this may be one reason why an up-and-coming tech company would want to locate in Silicon Valley, rather than in Tennessee, where costs are far cheaper.

But why do companies that congregate become more profitable? It has to do, Ananat says, with the fact that when a number of companies involved in similar work are concentrated in one area, they effectively create an ecosystem where ideas and refinements can spread easily from one company to the next, and increase productivity overall.

“It’s stuff in the ether — you know, these tips that get communicated,” Ananat says. “For any given job, it’s going to be specific to that job. That’s why they are so hard to identify and so valuable. We say, ‘Oh, you’re not doing that quite right. Do it just this way instead.’ “

What does all of this have to do with the racial wage gap? Much of this valuable information that gets transmitted and shared in the ecosystem happens in informal or social settings — over lunch, or a beer after work, or even at church on Sunday. Those social settings tend to be segregated, with whites tending to spend time with whites and blacks with blacks. (The next time you are in an office cafeteria, notice who sits next to whom at lunch.) In a world where ethnic groups cluster together, those in the minority are less likely to share and benefit from spillover effects in the ecosystem and are therefore less likely to learn early on about important company developments or technological innovations.

“People of the same race are much more likely to have conversations where they share ideas,” she says. “The fact is you just talk more about everything with people who you feel more comfortable with than with people you feel less comfortable with. And we know that one of the big predictors of who you feel comfortable with is whether you are of the same ethnicity.”

Ananat explains the findings with a hypothetical example: “Say there are 1,000 black engineers in Silicon Valley, compared to 20 in Topeka, and there are 10,000 total engineers in Silicon Valley, compared to 500 in Topeka. Then blacks make up 10 percent of engineers in Silicon Valley, compared to 4 percent in Topeka.”

“A black engineer in Silicon Valley has 980 more black engineers to get spillovers from than does a black engineer in Topeka,” she writes in an email. “Meanwhile, a white engineer in Silicon Valley has 8,500 more white engineers to benefit from than a white engineer in Topeka. Thus, while both white and black engineers’ wages will be higher in Silicon Valley than in Topeka, the white engineer’s wages will increase more than the black engineer’s do — in effect, the white engineer is living in a much bigger city (of engineers) than the black engineer is, if only people within one’s own race matter for urban spillovers.”

How do companies take advantage of this knowledge?  The study went on to explain that certain individuals in companies cross the racial divide (they call them ‘code-switchers’).  Companies who want to ensure all employees are sharing information will engage these code-switchers, and actually work to recruit more code-switchers, as they will work as links between both bodies and knowledge, almost acting like a bridge to the knowledge and to the relationships where the knowledge is coming from.  The companies with more, and more active, code-switchers can gain the most from their complete body of knowledge that all of their employees have.   Using code-switchers as mentors, especially with your minority employees, is also a great way to ensure the knowledge is being shared between the groups.

I love how social science takes the emotion out of a topic like this and looks at the reality of why this is happening.   HR wants to plan events so we all get to know each others cultures better, etc. When in reality, science will show us differences will continue regardless, focus on finding ways to gain the value from all of those differences by finding ways to ensure sharing of everyone’s knowledge is being done.