Not Everyone Is Created ‘Professional’

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My friend and HR Pro, Kris Dunn, is fond of saying – “The world needs ditch diggers to”.

I got into a conversation with a couple HR pros recently regarding helping them find ways to find ‘unskilled’ talent for their company.  Today’s ‘unskilled’ doesn’t really mean having no skills – it means the person didn’t have to go to a four year college and get a degree to do the job!  What they need, also, wasn’t professional skilled trades – people who have to go through a certification process – plumbers, electricians, pipe-fitters, toolmakers, CNC machinists, etc.  We talked about a number of various marketing and employment branding things they could do to steal people from their competitors, etc., but the conversation for me always goes back to root cause.

Why?  Why can’t a company find semi-skilled labor when we have millions of unemployed people in this country?  Why?

Root cause?  Our society makes kids believe they only have two options when coming out of high school!

1. College/University route

2. Prison

I’m not joking!  If you look at what our country is doing to public education it’s completely insane.  A kid, who obviously doesn’t want to go the college route, has very little opportunity to learn a skill, or begin to learn a skill, before he or she graduates.  When I was in school, I was college bound from the start (underlying meaning – Timmy didn’t like manual labor!).  Still I was ‘forced’ to take multiple classes in my middle and high school around the skill trades.  I took wood shop and some basic auto repair class – but I had friends that spent most of their time learning how to weld, electrical work, rebuilding engines, etc.  None of these people are unemployed now!  The schools started early to identify kids who had the ‘knack’ for these skilled professions.

I have two high school boys right now.  Great students – neither of which have ever really lifted a tool, used a saw, a drill, changed oil in a machine, etc.  They have almost zero opportunity to do this in their school setting.  So, is public education the problem?  No.  We are the problem.  We equate success with college graduation.  We equate ‘doing better’ with a white collar job.  We equate importance to society by having a title and a desk.  I feel lucky my boys are good students.  I should feel lucky if my kids are passionate about learning a trade – professional or skilled!  Something has to change and it’s not our schools – it’s our mentality to what success looks like in our society.  I find myself envious of my auto mechanic, of my electrician and my plumber – I wish I had half their skills!  I would be proud if my son came and said he wanted to be a toolmaker.  Those are great jobs and skills to have, and as the baby boom generation continues to leave the workforce – more and more of those ‘skilled’ professionals are going to be needed.

As Aristotle said, “Where the needs of the world and your talents cross, there lies your vocation.”

Mailbag: How do you talk someone into working Contract?

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Here’s the question:

“Can you please help me on how do you convince a candidate to work on contract?”

Sam – New Jersey

Here’s some background, because some people might be confused on what the question even asks. A ‘Contract’ position is usually what technical engineering and IT recruiters refer to for a professional temporary type job.  It’s not ‘temp’ that you usually think of when someone says “hey I’ve got a temp job” for you  – which is normally a low paying, manual labor job.  Contract positions are usually project based, highly paid hired guns that come in to do a certain job and move on.  You also see many corporations now using contract hiring for their professional staff as a kind of ‘try and buy’ type of staffing.  Hire talent on contract, if they workout well and fit your culture, then offer them a direction position.

Sam – is new to the professional contingent staffing game – and he’s asking the million dollar question.  Your ability to sell ‘contract’ is what separates the men from the boys in the staffing industry! Here’s my reply:

“Sam,

Here’s the canned staffing industry answer for getting an IT Pro to work contract vs. direct:

You talk a candidate into a contract because of a number of factors – the ability to work a project that gives them experiences they don’t have, to work for a company they have desire to work for, it’s a higher level of position than they currently have and/or it is in a location geographically they want to be versus where they are currently.  A few other things that are enticing – much higher level of compensation, working for a true leader in the industry (mentor type), working on a project that will set them up for future projects they couldn’t get without working on this project.  

 Here’s the reality:

If you have none of these things – you’ll never talk a direct person to go contract – unless they are just plain miserable in their current job.  To get a direct person to work contract you have to find their pain spot – what is it about their current position they can’t stand – and if you can solve that with what you have to offer – just maybe you’ll get that person to accept your contract position.  If you have none of those things that solves their pain – you have no chance.

Good luck, Tim”

Finding an individuals pain spot, or hot button, is the key to any kind of candidate negotiation, but critical for getting someone to accept a contract position.  I’ve been told by 100+ HR Pros that a ‘good’ candidate would never accept a contract position over a direct position.  After 10 years of working the industry – I can honestly look them in the eye and tell them they are flat wrong!  I get people to take contract position every single week who turn down direct positions.  The direct position might be with a bad company, bad location, low pay, etc.  Contract offers them an opportunity to stay where they want, work with a company they’ve been targeting to get into, maybe cash a big check, etc.

I speak to corporate HR Pros every single week and many have the same issue – “Tim – we spend so much time and resources bringing in good talent – only to have them fail and once they are on staff, it seems next to impossible to get rid of them quickly!”   Contract is one answer to solve this.  It allows both sides to feel each other out, see if it’s a fit and then get married down the road after you’ve dated a while.  If it doesn’t work, your hiring managers don’t feel the same ‘ownership’ of a contractor and will cut them loose quicker than they would a direct employee.

 

Finding Mr. Right Too Fast

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Here’s the scenario:

You have an opening and you do your recruiting thing.  You find a candidate and low and behold they are great!  What luck!? You think to yourself. The hiring manager is going to thrilled. Boy, my job is easy!

Do I need to even go on?

You set up the interview with the hiring manager.  She also thinks the candidate is great.  Done deal, you think to yourself.  Then ‘it’ happens.  The hiring manager, she does that thing they do, those hiring manager types, she says that statement we don’t want to hear:

“Let’s take a look at a couple more before we decide.”

Bam!

Just like that, this job went from being easy to being horrible!  You found her Mr. Right and now she wants to see two more Mr. Rights!  Doesn’t she know, Mr. Right only comes around once!?

Grizzled Recruiting Veterans know what I’m talking about.  Finding Mr. Right too fast is a killer.  So, how do you get around this?  There are two ways, neither of which is preferred over the other:

1. Hold Mr. Right and show them Mr. and Mrs. Wrong.  The problem with this is that while you’re messing around showing the hiring manager Mr. and Mrs. Wrong, Mr. Right might just find Mrs. Right Job for him and you’re done holding hands with Mr. and Mrs. Wrong – with a hiring manager saying “I want Mr. Right – Go find me Mr. Right!”

2. Present Mr. Right, and present Mr. and Mrs. Wrong soon after.  This works about 75% of the time if you have secondary candidates waiting to go – timing is everything with this.  Hiring Manager sees Mr. Right.  Wants to see who else might be on the market. You quickly show them Mr. and Mrs. Wrong.  Hiring manager makes quick decision to go with Mr. Right.

Either way getting a hiring manager to understand the market and what they have can sometimes be a sales job!  Too many hiring managers believe you can present them a slate of Mr. and Mrs. Rights!  When in reality you might know that you got lucky finding one Mr. or Mrs. Right – and the chances of finding more are slim to none.  Ah, hiring managers…you can’t live with them and you can’t legally shoot them.

You Still Don’t Work 80 Hours Per Week!

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I have to say one of my most read posts, ever, and one that I take the most crap about is –What would it take to get you to work 80 hours per week? People actually take this post as a personal attack to their work ethic.  So, I’m here to say – I still don’t believe you!  And, now I have research to back up how you don’t really work 80 hours in a week.  From Fast Company -The Truth About How Much Workaholics Actually Work:

“A study published in the June 2011 Monthly Labor Review that compared estimated workweeks with time diaries reported that people who claimed their “usual” workweeks were longer than 75 hours were off, on average, by about 25 hours. You can guess in which direction. Those who claimed that a “usual” workweek was 65–74 hours were off by close to 20 hours. Those claiming a 55–64-hour workweek were still about 10 hours north of the truth. Subtracting these errors, you can see that most people top out at fewer than 60 work hours per week. Many professionals in so-called extreme jobs work about 45–55 hours a week. Those are numbers I can attest to from time logs I’ve seen over the years. I’ve given speeches at companies known for their sweatshop hours and had up-and-comers keep time logs for me. Their recorded weeks tend to hover around 60 hours–and that’s for focused, busy weeks with no half days, vacation days, or dentist appointments, and, most important, for weeks that people are willing to share with colleagues. We live in a competitive world, and boasting about the number of hours we work has become a way to demonstrate how devoted we are to our jobs.

That would be funny, except that numbers have consequences. If you think you’re working 80 hours per week, you’ll make different choices in your attempts to optimize them than if you know you usually work 55.”

Look – I get you work hard and you work long – but, I also get all of us think we work longer than we actually do!  It’s not an attack – it’s just the truth.  The same goes for all of you out their working 40 hours per week, when you only have about 20 hours of work – you find ways to stretch 20 hours of work into 40 hours of pay!

Ultimately, we shouldn’t be talking about hours, damn Unions!, we should be talking about results.  I don’t care if you work 10 hours or 100 hours – I, truly, only care about what you get done in that time.  We still have too many leaders who worry about hours and watch and see who leaves ‘first’ and who stays ‘late’.  The reality is – it probably has no bearing at all on their performance – and if anything, probably has a negative influence.

Results.  Set the desired result and manage to that.  If you have those not meeting the result – then you manage that issue (which might include the need to work more hours!).  I know, I know the girls from ROWE will love hearing this – and think they converted me – but they haven’t.  While I really like ROWE – it still doesn’t work for every organization.  Ugh, please don’t let Cali and Jody see this!

The Proactive Recruiting Myth

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If there is one thing that I hear more from hiring managers and executives, especially executives!, it is why can’t recruiting, as a function, be more proactive!  Both groups look at it like an economic lesson – supply and demand – like recruiting is an assembly line.  In ‘their’ world they have expected needs, and to meet those needs they will need product, so they schedule that much product to be produced and ready for delivery on the date needed.  Simple.  What is wrong with recruiting!? That’s what we want!

Simple.

Being proactive in recruiting and having a pipeline of candidates ready to go and start working isn’t simple.  You’re dealing with two parallel moving time lines – the candidates and the organizations need of that talent – it’s highly complex.  Whenever I hear about an organization that is ‘proactively’ recruiting it makes me smile – because they probably really aren’t proactively recruiting, they’re probably actually recruiting for needs they know they’ll have in the future – which is reactive, since they already know of the need.  Proactive recruiting is preparing for a need you don’t know of yet, but expect will happen.  Those are two different things.  One you have money for, one you don’t.

If you truly want your Recruiting department to do proactive recruiting, you have to be willing to ‘over-hire’ the amount of staff you actually need.  Some companies are actually willing to do this, and fund this.  But stop and think for a minute the message that sends to your organization.  You’re hiring replacements for people who haven’t left, so you’re assuming we are going to leave, crap I don’t want to be the person who gets let go, I better go out and find something!  You get people to think about leaving by being proactive.  ‘Proactive’ recruiting in this sense might actually cause higher turnover (I actually know this from experience when a highly successful organization I worked with thought this would be a brilliant idea – it wasn’t).

Now, some of you HR/Talent Pros reading this will say – but wait, what if your proactively recruiting for growth! Again – that’s not proactive, that’s reactive. If you know you’re growing, you would be hiring those folks for spots you plan on having in the future – this doesn’t cause your workforce to freak out and think they might be replaced – these people are being hired for growth.

The problem is very few HR/Talent Pros are willing to tell their hiring managers and executives the truth about Proactive Hiring.  We can do it – but – it will cost money and it might cause some folks to leave that we don’t want to leave!  Now, you can combat this – but that takes strong leaders willing to have great performance and developmental discussions with their team. There is a false assumptions by hiring managers and leaders that recruiting can somehow magically pipeline great talent for a long time.  Some organizations that a brand that can do this – but 97% don’t!  Google can pipeline candidates for months, years – folks are willing to wait in cue to get on board.  Walmart can’t. Nike can.  Bank of America can’t.

What can you do?  Share reality.  Explain why, what they want is difficult and costs a ton of money.  Then give them some other solutions, that are most cost effective.  Ways to lower turnover, ways to develop talent and ways to onboard talent faster. Also, start changing their vocabulary – Proactive – in their vernacular is the wrong word!

iTunes killed Recruiting

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There was an excellent article recently on how  iTunes singles have killed the music industry.  Buying singles hasn’t killed sales, though, in fact sales are actually up!  So, how has iTunes killed the music industry?

“When music sales reached their peak in 2000, Americans bought 943 million CD albums, and digital sales weren’t even a blip on the radar. By 2007, however, those inexpensive digital singles overtook CDs — by a wide margin — generating 819 million sales to just 500 million for the CD. Last year, there were 1.4 billion digital singles sold, dwarfing CD sales by a factor of 7. More than three-quarters of all music-related transactions were digital singles last year, according to the RIAA…

The popularity and ease of downloading cheap digital singles has transformed the industry. Not since the vinyl era has the single been this popular. The smaller, cheaper “45” record dominated music in the 1950s and ’60s, but the music industry wised up in the ’70s.Vinyl, cassette and CD singles were always cheaper for consumers, but manufacturing costs were not. Nor was the space required to house them in stores. Thus, the single became harder and harder to come by.”

In theory, we really ever never wanted an entire album/CD, for the majority of us there were always a few great songs that most listened to, but by having to buy the entire album the artist were able to work their craft. By getting music sold that wouldn’t sell if you’re just by singles, the artist is allowed to have some more freedoms to write and produce songs that might not otherwise get made, which down the road could end up being the start of something new.  Buying singles limits dare I say – diversity – of music.  The concept of only buying popular music singles is homogenizing the entire industry.  The music industry has completely changed in ten years since iTunes was launched.  Now the music industry focuses on producing hits – not music – assuming you don’t want to be one of those starving artist!

So, how has iTunes killed recruiting?

iTunes changed how we looked at something and made us want something different.  We use to want music and knew we had to ‘buy the entire package’ an artist would give us.  That included some great songs, average songs and probably some songs that were purely experiments.  iTunes is so popular many other industries try to copy the method of their success.  This philosophy spreads – “I don’t want to buy what you want to sell me – I want to buy what I want!”  Like Burger King made so popular – “I want it my way!”

Hiring has somewhat become a victim of this, especially hiring managers.  I remember a time when we would interview candidates knowing they were going to have some ‘opportunities’ and we as an organization where going to have to bring them in, give them a big hug, and teach them what they didn’t know and make them valuable to us.  Now, most organizations want to hire like they buy iTunes. They only want superstars.  When you hire a person they should have no opportunities. They should all be hit songs!  This is ruining recruiting!  Because the fact of the matter is, no one is a superstar, and everyone of us has opportunities.  By having a philosophy that you ‘only hire superstars’ you’re setting your organization and the new hire up for major failure because in short-order you’re going to find out they actually do have opportunities.  You’re going to find out, they aren’t all hit songs!

 

 

 

 

Mailbag: How Can I Get My Employees To Refer More?

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From The Project mailbag –

“Tim –

My company is doing a ton of hiring and we are trying to get our employees to refer former co-workers, friends, family, etc.  We offer a great referral bonus.  We make it easy. Still we get little, if any, referrals – and usually it’s the same people who refer candidates.  What can we do to get our employees to refer more people?

-Jennifer, Talent Acquisition Director, Austin, TX”

I love this question, because I think 99.9% of Talent and HR Pros face this same dilemma at some point in their career.  We spend a ton of time and resources putting together a great referral program – then we get the same results we got from the old referral program!  It’s frustrating. It makes us feel like our employees don’t care about the company. It makes us feel like we must not be doing something that we should.  You’re right! Well, somewhat right!

Here is my response to Jennifer:

“Jen – (It’s funny but I have a small pet peeve – if someone has a longer name with multiple syllables or one that seems formal – I like to call them by the shorter easier name. Sometimes people take offense to that. Like with ‘Jennifer’ – I like ‘Jen’ – with William – I like Will or Bill – Steven is Steve – James is Jim – you get the picture.  If you tell me “No, it’s James”, in my head I’m thinking “No, it’s asshole!” Anywho…back to Jen!)

Everything with your program is fine. Sure you can make tweaks and add technology, etc.  But basically referral programs don’t work because Talent Acquisition does two things wrong:

1. You’re asking the wrong question.  Almost every HR shop wants their employee to refer more candidates – and they will ask “Who do you know that is looking?”  The reply, almost 100% of the time – “No.”  Instead, ask this one question, then have your recruiters shut up and write down what they say: “Tell me the name of one of your previous co-workers from your last company.”  That’s it.  Each name is a referral.  You can tweak it for certain companies you want to pull from and focus the question to those current employees who came from those companies.  It works.   

2. You Don’t Ask Face-to-face.  Employees can blow off email easier than anything. Stop sending email and even calling them.  Get your lazy butt off your chair and have your recruiters sit down face-to-face when they ask this question. 

This change, to how you go about getting Employee Referrals, forces your recruiters to actually recruit – which is why 99% of companies don’t do this on the corporate side of Talent Acquisition!  If all you get is a name and a place of employment – your recruiters will have to Google a phone number and call into a company to speak to the person – they also might be able to find the person on social networks and track them down that way, but it’s faster to just call them at work.  People LOVE being called about a job opportunity!  It’s flattering. You found them – they don’t know how – they must be doing something right!  

Let me know how this works!

Tim”

I hope Jen tries this with her team, but I don’t hold out hope.  People say they want more of something – you tell them how to get it – and they reply with “Oh, I didn’t want to do that”.  Oh, so you were looking for magical unicorns to give you more referrals – my bad – yeah, those work to, magical unicorns are great for referrals!  What people really are saying is “How can I get more referrals without doing anything to get them?”  My answer to that question would be different from what I told Jen above – that answer is:  “Nothing”.

 

 

 

 

A Car Ride To Laramie

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There are times in your life you’ll never forget.  Take a moment and think about your past.  What comes to mind?  It’s funny how we can recall some very important moments – graduating, getting married, birth of a child, etc., but we also recall some very, for what it seems now, insignificant moments as well.  I thought of one recently – and I was able to recall it like it was yesterday.  In the summer of 1988 I made a decision to forgo an academic scholarship at Western Michigan University and drive 1200 miles to attend the University of Wyoming.  I never went and visited UW, and being that it was 1988 – I couldn’t even have looked it up on the internet.  I had a friend who was there and the extent of the conversation was “hey, they have a men’s volleyball team here – come out and play”.

I packed up my 1979 Ford Mustang and set out with an atlas of the United States my father had given me.  It was August and hot, and my car had no air conditioning and an 8 track tape player.  I bought a cassette tape adapter, filled up the tank with everything an 18 year old had to there name and drove west.  Here’s the exact moment I remember –

I’m driving across western Illinois on I80 – it’s basically truck stops and corn fields.  The sun is shining hot, the windows are down and the music was loud (because of how loud the wind noise was driving down the highway with your windows down).  I had this feeling of hope like I had never felt before.  Of wonderment.  An energy that you only feel when starting something new.  It was a feeling of – I’m starting my life.  For the first time – the life I would be living would be mine – and it was glorious.

It’s not a memory most of us get to have frequently.  Usually once – then real life comes along and kicks you in the ass at some point (Dad forgot to mention that part as he handed me a cooler of cold drinks on my way out of Grand Rapids!).

Starting something new.

Think about that the next time you’re trying to figure out how to get something launched or start something over within your organization.  Starting is where the fun happens – not where the work begins.  Starting is where you still have hope.  Where everything is positive.  When your energy level will be highest.  Don’t waste the start.  Relish in it – make it last – don’t discount it. Crazy how a simple car ride to Laramie can mean so much.

 

SHRM Conference Rejection #2

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I got a SHRM Strategy Conference rejection letter last week.  Some of you might remember the last rejection I got from SHRM – if not – here’s the post on FOT – SHRM Doesn’t Like Us – But You Should.   Here’s the email from rejection #2:

SHRM rejection 2
Here’s what I wish Letty would have done instead:

Dear Tim,

Thank you for submitting a presentation proposal….blah, blah, blah.

I either liked it or didn’t like, it doesn’t matter  – we didn’t select it.  We didn’t select it because: (followed by 3 actual reasons)

1. The content didn’t fit what we wanted to do – next time try….

2. It’s been done before a thousands times – next time try…

3.  You have no idea what you’re talking about, etc., etc., etc.

Please try again next time – if you want some pointers catch me at the next conference and we can have a cup a coffee.

Letty

There’s no doubt Letty is smart – George Washington MBA grad – actually worked at a staffing company (you would think Letty would have a kinship with me!), long time SHRM employee.  I’ve been a SHRM SPHR holder and member since 2001 – and I keep hearing how they want ‘fresh blood’ and ‘new ideas’ and, yet, every SHRM conference I attend I see the same content, same faces presenting, same SHRM.  I’ve actually seen a presentation from a guy at SHRM national who has been doing the same presentation for the last 10 years – he just changes the dates on the first slide!   I wanted to shoot myself.  But I stayed and he gave me these tips for getting accepted by Letty and the SHRM crew:

1. Sell out.  Go completely old school HR – FMLA is exciting, OHSA rocks, I have 4 cats.

2. Make a title that sounds so boring you fall asleep actually making it – but make sure to use words like: Strategic, Influence and Results.

3. Don’t say anything slightly controversial in your bio or presentation description – don’t piss off the powers that be.

Sorry, crew – I won’t do it.  Truth be told Kris Dunn and I actually did follow these rules for the 2012 SHRM national show and got accepted – but then did the presentation the way we wanted to just using SHRM’s boring title slide.  It was well attended, we got great feedback and got strong survey numbers – and – we didn’t get invited back this year.

Letty, Letty, Letty – it’s O.K. – I don’t bite, really!  I’m a former headhunter like you, our kind needs to stick together!

Ugh – this just sounds like sour grapes.  I give up on trying to help SHRM.

A Diversity Plan Even White People Can Live With!

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When was the last time you went to a crowded beach or park, or even went to an outdoor concert where you had to sit on the grass?  I can bet you did something – because everyone does this.  You set up a perimeter didn’t you? A what?! A perimeter. You put down your blanket, maybe an umbrella, some chairs, etc.  You made sure you carved out ‘your’ space, in a public space that is open to everyone.  Hell, let’s face it – if you would have had portable fencing you would have put that up as well.  Humans like to collect, build and attempt to keep all of it.  It’s why the Great Wall of China was built.  It’s why we have a silly fence up between the U.S. and Mexico.  It’s why you have a 6 foot high fence up around your 40 foot by 40 foot backyard in the suburbs.  You’re protecting ‘your’ space.

Diversity is about breaking down those walls, those barriers, so it stands to reason that those barriers that are being broken down are going to cause some folks to be uncomfortable.  In 99.9% of the cases in today’s work world – those folks are white people – and to slice it even further – white men.  Let me give you an example so we can discuss:

Let’s say you work in a company with 100 employees and 88% of those employees are white.  Now HR comes out and says “we value Diversity” (not sure who the ‘we’ is, but we’ll assume our white leadership team who live in the $750K homes and their kids go to schools with zero diversity), and we are going to do a bunch of ‘stuff’ to increase the diversity of our workforce.  Here’s what the 88% hear.  “You 88 white people aren’t good enough.  We need to get rid of some of you and bring in minorities because they can do it better.”  Which might be true.

Remember your blanket in the park?  Someone just sat their chair down in the middle of your white work forces blanket. That isn’t a good feeling.  (It’s uncomfortable for you to hear/read ‘white work force’ isn’t it? Most people who write about diversity/inclusion will use ‘majority’ and ‘minority’ because it puts it in less black and white terms – makes it easier to accept.)

Most organizations and HR shops struggle to do Diversity and Inclusion successfully in their organizations because they are unwilling to recognize this simple reality and address it.   Oh, believe me I hear you right now!  “Tim – diversity and inclusion isn’t about color – it’s about thoughts and ideas!” Then you my friend don’t get the reality of 90% of the organizations out there today.  For most it is still about faces – shouldn’t be – but it is.  To be successful – we have to move beyond that.  So, how do you do that?

There isn’t a perfect solution.  A silver bullet.  But I do know one way that has helped some organizations – but it might give you (HR and leadership) some answers that will be hard for to live with!  Data.  Data doesn’t lie.  It just gives you the truth.  If you ‘truly’ want better performance – through data, find the exact makeup of the highest performing groups and teams in your organization, industry, competitors, etc.  Here’s the catch – data might show you that your 100% all white guy sales team isn’t the most effective.  You might find that the makeup should be 90% 24 year old Asian females and 10% middle age Hispanic males.  You also might find that 100% white guy is the best.  Data will give you truth – most organizations don’t want the truth.  Most HR shops don’t want the truth.  They want to take your 88% white and turn it into 75% white because ‘feels’ better.

I’m not saying your white employees will like to hear that they are all getting let go so you can bring in your all female Asian team, but at least there is a reason based on data – not feelings.  HR and leadership have been sold a false premise that Diversity and Inclusion is good for all.  It makes you better.  And so we march forward like lemmings off a cliff, not questioning the truth.  The truth is – diversity and inclusion might be great for your organization.  The truth is – it also might be disastrous for your organization.  Do the research.  Stop reading USA Today articles.  Figure out what is actually best for your organization.  Don’t blindly follow anything, just because everyone else is doing it.  There is a ‘right’ answer out their for your organization, and you might be surprised at what that answer is.