Is HR Wasting Your Time?

Posted on May 11, 2011 by Tim Sackett

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.

The 2nd Biggest Lie We Tell In HR

Posted on May 9, 2011 by Tim Sackett

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.

Group-Thinking Your Way To Better HR Metrics

Posted on May 6, 2011 by Tim Sackett

Great article this week in the Wall Street Journal on What Gives Social Norms Their Power, the research doesn’t have direct implications to HR, but you can derive much out of not just how social norms/the unspoken rules of a group, shape not just behavior but also the attitudes of your employees. From the Wall Street Journal:

These are examples of how individuals’ behavior is shaped by what people around them consider appropriate, correct or desirable. Researchers are investigating how human behavioral norms are established in groups and how they evolve over time, in hopes of learning how to exert more influence when it comes to promoting health, marketing products or reducing prejudice…

The more public an object or behavior is, the more likely it is to spread, Dr. Berger says….

Rarely does any one individual set an entirely new norm for the group. Group leaders, however, help perpetuate or shift the norm. Unlike innovators, leaders tend to be high-status “superconformists,” embodying the group’s most-typical characteristics or aspirations, says Deborah Prentice, a social psychologist at Princeton University. People inside and outside the group tend to infer the group’s norms by examining these leaders’ behaviors….

So, here’s what I’ve discovered over my 18 years in HR – if you make a certain HR metric (let’s say Turnover) very public and your leaders talk about it publicly – you can change nothing but just that communication – and that metric will almost change for the positive overnight. That’s funny right? “Why is that funny, Tim!” It’s funny because we spend so much time in “Retention Committee” meetings, and “Retention Strategy Team” meetings, and meeting with vendors who guarantee to drop our turnover by 10%, and build programs that cost thousands of dollars and hundreds of man hours – when all we had to do was print off about 50 black and white 8″X11.5″ paper with the words: CURRENT EMPLYOEE TURNOVER 9.7%. Tape them all over the halls, on the back of doors, inside the elavator, oh, yeah and have the CEO talk about it.

About 23 minutes of work – about $5 in office supply expense – and your turnover is lowered!

“Well, yeah, that might drop turnover a little – but we are really more concerned with the leader behaviors that created turnover in the first place…” Blah, Blah, Blah…

Look, it works for more than just turnover:

Referral Program – post how many referrals were hired in the last month, 6 months -what total % of your hires.
401K utilization – post how much money was left on the table from people not taking advantage of their match – show a picture of pile of money!
Safety Training Compliance – post a list of names of those individuals who haven’t finished the class.

And, don’t forget, make your executive talk about it – a lot.

Here’s the key to make it work – because I know some of you’ll will actually do this and lose your minds and go overboard. So, DON’T MISS THIS – you can’t get results with this if you try and fix everything at once. This takes sustained focus. Post the signs of current Turnover week 1, the next post will show the current and the improvement/or even if it gets worse, week 3 the new metric….week 26 the new metric…get it? Stick to one thing you really want to change. You can do turnover one week and 401K enrollment the next – it won’t work. People won’t get that it’s important, if you keep jumping around trying to change everything – and your leader will lose credibility.

Now if you have some budget money, you can go beyond copy paper postings – you can build a dashboard, make posters, t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc. The key is to make it public – very public – the more in your face the better – and don’t stop sticking in their face. Think forehead tattoos!

HR’s Role in Connecting the Dots

Posted on May 4, 2011 by Tim Sackett

Organizationally, HR plays a great role in making sure all departments are working together for one overriding shared goal or sense of purpose. I’m telling anyone who works in HR, this is a tough job. I’m also sure that by saying this, there are more than a few HR Pros saying “Whoa! Wait a minute – that sounds like leaderships’ role!” The problem we face by throwing this on the back of our leadership, is they get lost in their own department or groups, individual goals, and have a hard time understanding, or even knowing, what the goals are of the other functional areas of your organization. Someone has to own it, to make it happen – that is where you my HR brethern came be very valuable.

Malcolm Gladwell has a fantastic, insightful article over at the New Yorker called “Connecting the Dots” that looks at a number of historical scenarios in which could have been stopped or changed significantly, if someone would have connected the dots (think 9/11 type scenarios!). I love Gladwell for the simple fact he doesn’t look to place blame, he looks to discover the truth and how, if we get another shot, is a better way to do it all over again. In his article he points out how competing interests, and in an organizations case, and competing groups can cause a failure in connecting the dots that will benefit everyone involved. He also discusses something I think has HR Department written all over it. From the article:

…in our zeal to correct what we believe to be the problems of the past, we end up creating new problems for the future.

Let that marinate for a minute…

Isn’t this classic HR problem solving? Leadership comes down and is hell bent on stopping Turnover (or some other metric they believe will solve all of our ills!). Emergency HR meetings take place. SWOT teams are formed. Councils are Created. There are No Sacred Cows. Change must happen. They want to see blood in the Hallways. Now.

So, we do stuff. We do stuff that will stop Turnover, or fill critical openings, etc., etc., etc. And it “fixes” the problem.

And, Leadership is Happy. That is until we see the fallout from the changes that were made – and there is always fallout.

It’s a tough organization problem to stop because it takes leadership that is not willing to go left-ditch, right-ditch everytime a problem pops up, and that has strong enough communication and foresight to understand that the dominos they tip over today, will knock over some more tomorrow. But it helps if there is a voice of reason yelling from the back row of the conference room (a brave voice – I might add!). It also helps, if we in HR can lead by example – and stop in our zeal to correct a problem, create more problems for the future.

HR owns the role of Connecting the Dots for our organization. Someone has to do it – I pick us. We tend to be the voice of reason anyway, so it fits. But go into this role eyes-wide-open, it won’t make you popular – no one likes a voice of reason when there hell bent on change, but eventually those will half a head on their shoulders will figure out your value, and that’s more important than popularity!

Still Waiting On My OJ Check

Posted on May 2, 2011 by Tim Sackett

Big news this past weekend on Osama Bin Laden finally getting found and killed by U.S. Forces. I’m told by the media it is suppose to be a day of celebration as we finally made due on what Al Qaeda did on 9/11 – but you know what? I don’t feel like celebrating. We lost thousands of innocent people on 9/11 – we have lost more since fighting this war on terrorism – and it’s sad. It’s sad because I know killing Bin Laden isn’t going to stop Al Qaeda, it isn’t going to stop terrorism – this is bigger than one person.

I have the same feeling today as I had when OJ was acquitted and people were celebrating in the streets. I didn’t understand it and it left me with an empty feeling. A feeling that we as a society still didn’t understand the other side – a side that would celebrate a murderer (allegedly) going free.

So today, we are out again in the streets celebrating. Celebrating we got our guy. Celebrating that we finally got back at the man who caused our nation so much pain. I don’t feel like celebrating – I feel like getting down on my knees and praying to G*d that this will all stop – that we won’t feel the need to celebrate revenge, that we can get back to celebrating life.

God Bless the men and women of our Armed Forces who gave their life to stop this monster – I wish they wouldn’t have had to do it in the first place.

Jumpers

Posted on April 29, 2011 by Tim Sackett

“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

The 8 Man Rotaton – A Look at Sports and HR

Posted on April 28, 2011 by Tim Sackett

Matt (@akaBruno) Stollak put together an eBook of some of our favorite Sports related HR posts from an impressive group of HR bloggers and myself (see how I didn’t include myself in the “impressive group of HR bloggers” – that’s called self-insight my fellow HR Pros!).

Here’s our Line Up:

– Kris Dunn – The HR Capitalist; Head FOT’er , KinetixHR and smooth shooting 2 guard, maybe a 3 if he’s playing with all white guys – but on this team we have him play the 5 – plus he’s probably the only one who can actually play anyway.

– Lance Huan – Of the @TheLance, Rehaul, TLNT fame – definitely a point guard build, but with a Barkley personality.

– Steve Boese – HR Technology, HR Happy Hour host, and he works someplace but doesn’t like to talk about it (we think he might actually be a spy!) – a solid two guard who likes to spot up in the corner, wearing the old school Chucks.

– Matt Stollak – @akaBruno, St. Norberts HR Professor straight out of Green Bay (err, DePere), the prof that you always wanted in school, we have him play the 3 the primarily because most teams don’t run well with 3 point guards on the floor at the same time.

– Me– The Tim Sackett Project (that’s original), FOT’er 4 Life, HRU EVP – playing the 4 spot because although I have a personality like Barkley, I also have the backside to match – which means I can box out anyone!

So, check out our eBook – The 8 Man Rotation

Nursing Moms Seen as Less Competent

Posted on April 27, 2011 by Tim Sackett

Have something to admit. I’m a bit of an expert in regards to Nursing Mothers. “Really”, you say. Let me explain. I’m in a fairly small office, 20 or so employees on a daily basis – about 70% female. The interesting part is that in the last few years, I don’t think we’ve gone a day when we haven’t had a nursing mother on our staff. The women keep telling me it’s something in the water – I keep yelling at our water softener rep – and yet it hasn’t changed. That being said – I was somewhat shocked when I read a report out of the Wall Street Journal titled “Nursing Moms Seen as Less Competent” in which spoke of a new study claiming people perceived nursing mothers as lower performers than their peer group. From WSJ:

In one of several experiments testing attitudes toward breastfeeding, 60 students were told they’d be forming general impressions of other people, based on a brief meeting and reading of a short profile. Each met a woman whose profile described her as a married transfer student and psychology major. During the course of the experiment, this woman—actually a confederate of the researchers— checked her voicemail and played out loud a friendly message that varied in one way: It expressed understanding that the woman wanted to push back a social event because she had to go home to 1) breastfeed her baby; 2) give a baby a bath (emphasizing her motherhood but not breastfeeding) ; 3) change into a strapless bra (emphasizing the sexuality of the breasts); or for an unexplained reason.

The students rate the “breastfeeding” woman lowest of the four on overall competence, workplace capabilities, math ability – and also whether they’d hire her, if they were in a position to do so.

So, what does this tell us? Clearly that those 60 students at Montana State University are idiots – but beyond that – probably someone who has no concept of breastfeeding probably shouldn’t be taking a perception survey on cognitive competence based on whether someone breastfeeds or not! From my in-depth experience with breastfeeding here’s what I know:

The women who were/are nursing mothers who have worked with me – work their butts off and usually have to endure uncomfortable, at best, and embrassing conversation with idiot male co-workers when trying to do what is best for their child, and still be productive and professional.
Work as hard or harder than their co-workers, because they know they are taking extra time out of their work schedule to take care of their lactation duties, and don’t want to be seen as not pulling their weight.
Are usually more on task with their work, because they value their personal and professional life balance more than most workers, who don’t have the same life challenges of working and raising a family.

And NO those breastfeeding Moms I work with in no way made me write this post! (how’s that gals?)

Signs You’re Not Getting Paid Enough

Posted on April 25, 2011 by Tim Sackett

Did anyone see the news last week that GM CEO, Dan Akerson, was paid $2.53M dollars in salary, stock awards, perks, etc.? From the Detroit Free Press:

General Motors paid Chairman and CEO Dan Akerson $2.53 million in salary, stock awards and corporate perks in 2010, according to a filing Thursday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission…

Akerson was named CEO of GM on Sept. 1, 2010, and was elected chairman on Jan. 1, 2011. He succeeded Edward Whitacre Jr., who retired as CEO last September. GM paid Whitacre $5 million last year. Chris Liddell, former chief financial officer, was GM’s highest-paid executive in 2010, receiving $6.2 million in total compensation. Liddell resigned April 1 to pursue other opportunities. Stephen Girsky, vice chairman, received $3.7 million. GM paid non-executive members of its board of directors between $91,478 and $238,145 last year, according to the filing.

Akerson said last December that some key executives were leaving the automaker because of government-imposed pay restraints. Akerson’s compensation, which only covered four months of 2010, was less than one-tenth the $26.5-million package that Fordpaid CEO Alan Mulally last year.

For starters, I get that most people can’t even comprehend making this much money – so many will believe they are all over paid. But it’s very telling when your major competition is paying same level positions – 10 times – what your organization is paying. Money doesn’t mean everything – but when the difference is that great – Talent will follow the money! Don’t give me the song and dance about “work environment” and “leadership” and “Orange Julious Thursday” – tell that to my kid who will be taking out loans to go to community college vs. all expense Daddy paid trip to NYU. Money matters – and it matters more when their is such an imbalance.

Here’s my quick take on signs your being underpaid:

1. Most of your subordinates are driving cars you hang pictures of in your office.

2. You and Mary the receptionist are the only ones who bag your lunch to work.

3. For Bosses Day – your staff gets you cash.

4. When recruiters call you about jobs and ask your salary they laugh – out loud.

5. On vacation you stayed in a hotel that had an actual number in the title (Super 8, Motel 6…)

6. You have actually ran the numbers to see how close unemployment payments would be to your actual pay.

Remember, if you find yourself sitting in a small conference room having a conversation with your boss and a member of HR – and you’re hearing things like “there are more important things than money”, “we value your contribution here”, “you just can’t throw away 7 years with us” – your probably underpaid – and they’re trying to get out of paying you more. Should you leave a great job and great company for a couple grand? No. Should you leave for $20K – well, I’m listening…

The Unpaid Internship: HR’s ethical dilemma or Victimless crime

Posted on April 22, 2011 by Tim Sackett