I had a conversation the other day with a corporate HR Director and we were talking recruiters – corporate recruiters.  My friend had a dilemma, a classic corporate recruiting scenario.  Here’s her problem – she has recruiters who are doing a decent job, but they won’t get out from behind their desk and get out into the organization and get face-to-face feedback from the hiring managers. But – here is the real reason:  the recruiters feel like they are “wasting” the hiring managers time.

“So” she asked, “How do I get them out to build these relationships?”

Great question – but she asked the wrong question (was partially my answer).  Her problem isn’t that her recruiters aren’t building the relationships face-to-face – the problem is they feel they are “wasting” someones time.  They don’t value, or understand the value they are providing to the hiring manager – if they did, it sounds like they wouldn’t have a problem with visiting with the hiring managers.  It’s a classic leadership fail – solving a symptom instead of solving the actual problem.

Don’t think that this is rare, recruiters feeling like they are wasting hiring managers time – it happens constantly at the corporate level.  Once you train your recruiters (and hiring managers) on the value the recruiters are providing – you see much less resistance of the recruiters feeling comfortable getting in front of hiring managers to get feedback on candidates, and actually making a decision.  This moves your process along much quicker.

What value do recuiters provide?  Well, that seems like a real stupid question – but there aren’t stupid questions (just stupid people who ask questions).  Here’s a few that will help your corporate recruiters understand their real value to hiring managers:

• Corporate recruiters are the talent pipeline for a hiring manager. (or should be!)
• Corporate recruiters can be the conduit for hiring managers to increase or better the talent within their department.
• Corporate recruiters are a partner to the hiring managers in assessing talent.
• Corporate recruiters are a strategist for the hiring managers group succession planning
• Corporate recruiters are your hiring managers first line of performance management (setting expectations before someone even comes in the door)
• Corporate recruiters are tacticians of organizational culture.

So, the next time you hear a recruiter tell you “I don’t want to waste their time.” Don’t go off on them and tell them to “just go out there and build the relationship” – educate them on why they aren’t wasting their time. Then do an assessment for yourself to determine are they adding value or are they just wasting time – all recruiters are not created equal – some waste time – and it’s your job as a leader to find ones add value. 

A critical component to all of this is building an expectation of your hiring managers of what they should expect from your recruiters.  They should expect value, they should expect a recruiter who is a pro, who is going to help them maneuver the organizational landscape and politics of hiring, they should expect a recruiter is going to deliver to them better talent than they already have, they should expect a partner, someone who is looking out for the best interest of the hiring managers department.  They should expect that their time won’t be wasted.

I love that HR Pros get so worked up about Performance Management and delivering great feedback to employees about their performance and development.  It’s one of things I really enjoy about HR – we help show people the way to becoming better versions of themselves.  Herein lies one of HR biggest problems, though, not everyone is going to get better. In fact, I think it’s the 2nd biggest lie we tell employees:

“Everyone can be successful.”

No, they can’t!  BusinessWeek had a good article last week called Be an Optimist without Being a Fool which examined this notion that there is a difference from having people believe they can be successful and the belief they can be successful without significant effort on their own part.  From the article:

There are quite a number of motivational speakers and self-improvement books out there with a surprisingly simple message: believe that success will come easily to you, and it will. There is one small problem in this argument, however, which unfortunately doesn’t seem to stop anyone from making it: it is utterly false.

In fact, not only is visualizing “effortless success” unhelpful, it is disastrous. This is good advice to give only if you are trying to sabotage the recipient. It is a recipe for failure. And no, I’m not overstating it…

But there is an important caveat: to be successful, you need to understand the vital difference between believing you will succeed, and believing you will succeed easily. Put another way, it’s the difference between being a realistic optimist and an unrealistic optimist…Believing that the road to success will be rocky leads to greater success because it forces you to take action.

In my experience in HR, within area of employee development, the times I saw people succeed the most were the times when I almost had to take the job away from someone.  Those times when not only myself, but their supervisor, thought they had no shot to succeed, that they didn’t “have it” in them to reach the level that was needed, and we were up front enough to share this gift of feedback.  Facing the up hill odds, they fought for it and were successful.  The times I’ve watched hiring manager, after hiring manager, blow hot air up employees butts about how successful they’ll be, those employees rarely ever come close to the high praise they were given.

When I was at Applebee’s the collective leadership called this “delivering a gift” – that’s what we called those “opportunity” conversations.  Tim, we love you enough to give you this gift or letting you know what is holding you back, and what are the mountains in front of you.   For those with some self-insight, this was indeed a gift.  A gift that allowed you to make a decision, was I willing to make the necessary changes to reach that next level, or that it was time for me to go, because I knew I wasn’t willing to put forth that effort.  In the end, not everyone will be successful – in fact very few will be – so don’t tell them this lie – you are doing a disservice to your employees.

So, what’s the 1st biggest Lie we tell in HR?

We treat everyone equal.

“I wish you could step back from the ledge my friend,

You could cut ties with all the lies,

That you’ve been living in.”

(Partial lyrics from “Jumper” -by Third Eye Blind)

In HR we have Jumpers.

I’m always amazed at how comfortable I’ve become over the years with Jumpers.  It’s not something I expected when I decided to get into HR, but it’s something that I’ve ironically become to expect from people.  Let me explain what “Jumpers” are in HR.

A “Jumper” is someone I think is comfortable throwing empty threats onto your desk.  Do these sound familiar:

– “If I don’t get “X”, I’m going to call my Lawyer…”

– “If you don’t do “X”, I’m going to quit…”

– “If my supervisor doesn’t change “X”, I’m going to accept this other offer…”

– “If I don’t get this promotion, I’ll be contacting the EEOC (or any number of government organizaitons)…”

The problem we have with jumpers, is your never for certain that they won’t jump.  I expect that we in HR become comfortable with jumpers because we become immune to the constant threat facing us.  In a way it’s very similar to a parent that threatens a child if they don’t eat their vegatables, they’ll sit at the dinner table until they do, and then 20 minutes later let’s them leave the table without finishing the vegatables.  In HR, too many times, we are the child leaving the table.

I’m not saying that this is good – because I tend to believe too many of us in HR miss these opportunities to handle these when they arrive and before they become an actual major problem.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve told employees – “well, if you feel you need to contact a lawyer – then you have to do what you feel you have to do…”  I’ve done this because I (and you) know – they aren’t contacting any lawyer – they’re just trying to push out buttons and get what they want.  99.9% of the time, or higher, a lawyer is never contacted.  But what happens when someone does?  All hell breaks loose, that’s what!  Now you have executives running around, asking questions, looking for reports and notes and documentation, etc. 

I’m not saying you should treat your Jumpers differently – I’m just saying that you need to be careful at how comfortable you become with Jumpers.  It’s an HR trap, that they don’t teach you in either the PHR or SPHR – you’ll never see a chapter on “Jumpers”.  You won’t see a session at SHRM national on Jumpers.  But if you’re in HR, you will deal with Jumpers weekly, some of you, daily.  The great HR Pros are great because they are able to filter out the fake jumpers, from the real jumpers – and when they find a real one – they grab ahold and keep them away from the ledge.

So, what do you do if you have a jumper?  Take it serious, but don’t over react.  Dig into what the jumper really wants (many times it’s just someone to listen). Work to keep the dialog going – even if it means coming back or another meeting later on (Jumpers usually don’t jump, if dialog is in play).  Lastley, don’t force a jumper to jump – give them some o