Should Businesses Be Hiring Now?

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Business Week asked this question recently and had Dan Finnigan, CEO of Jobvite (one of my favorite CEO’s and very cool product as well – even if he never sent me the iPad from my HR Tech Conference interview – let’s face it I work cheap, but not free!) and Daniel Kite, President of Sun Street (I don’t know him, so I don’t care) debate over the topic: Should employers stop waiting for the economy to strengthen further and start hiring right now. Dan went Pro, and Daniel went Con – from the article (Dan Finnigan’s Take):

Such industries as technology and health care are accustomed to competing for scarce talent—even throughout the downturn. The technology sector has seen fierce competition for talent with employee poaching, out-sized compensation, packages, and retention battles. This trend will grow only more widespread. By 2015, 60 percent of newly created jobs will require skills held by only 20 percent of the population, according to the American Society for Training and Development.

And the severity of the recession only exacerbates this shortage. The downturn shocked everyone into a new reality: that no job is really safe. As a result, many Americans have kept their heads down at their current jobs but are keeping their eyes peeled for a better one. Jobvite’s nationwide survey, Job Seeker Nation, found that 53 percent of those employed feel open to a new job—and are doing more than just hoping for it. Instead of waiting for the economy to improve their prospects, they are developing their skills, building connections, and cultivating new job opportunities via outlets such as social networks.

Smart employers recognize this and are not sitting still. Companies are now more concerned about their hiring pipelines, because they can’t count on a ready supply of applicants. “The economic recovery means we have to build relationships with a pool of promising talent because we no longer have that quick turnaround in the hiring cycle,” says Sarah Widner, who heads up human resources for Total Attorneys, a Chicago firm that delivers professional services to law practices.

Daniel Kite goes on about common sense and why would any business ever hire talent just for the simple fact that it’s available, yadda, yadda.

My take?

You staff for the business you want – not the business you have.  Think about that for a minute – because most HR Pros do the exact opposite – they only staff for the business they have – and that’s not very strategic mindset – that’s a conservative mindset and one that keeps your butt out of hot water.  Which might be your goal – I know a ton of HR Pros (all good people – well some aren’t so good) that spend most of their time just trying not to screw up.  I also know some very dynamic HR Pros who completely lead their organizations to bigger and better things – and they learn how to leverage risk.

When you hire in these times – there’s risk.  As an HR Pro, it’s our job to make sure we take calculated risk by hiring people so great, they can’t help but to make our organizations better.  If you do that – in my opinion – that’s common sense.  Hire great people, in the right positions, get out of their way – and watch your business grow.

Dan – send me my iPad.

 

The 5 Hiring Managers You Don’t Want

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Kris Dunn, The HR Capitalist, and I recently lead a webinar on The Five Faces Managers See During a Performance Review and it got me thinking about this concept from the other side.  What about the 5 Hiring Managers You Don’t Want – not only for performance reviews, but for interviews, development planning, discipline, etc.   In HR we are constantly dealing with every type of hiring manager you can imagine – but I came up with the top 5 I hate dealing with:

1. The Up-And-Out:  You know this person – usually happens in larger organizations – at some point they were given a manager/director/VP title because they were the last one standing.  As the talent took off in the organization to better positions with your competition, they kept moving up based mostly on the fact they had been around longer.  But in the end – they lack talent, lack motivation, aren’t respected – and usually way over their head.  They’ve been promoted past their ability and are now just waiting to be fired or retire.

2. The Nana-Nana-Boo-Boo I’m Better Than You:  This the person who became a manager because they were probably the best at what ever function they were in – but lack leadership skills – so their leadership philosophy is to continue to show their staff that they are still better than their team by showing them up – constantly and publicly.  A huge piece of this stems from lack of self confidence and they feel they have to continue to show their bosses why they put them in charge to begin with – because they “get” this stuff and no one else does.

3. The Classic Politician:  This is Captain Ass-Kisser (which was my first title for this hiring manager but I didn’t want to offend anyone) – and Captain Fence Sitter.  This is the hiring manager that will never take a stand, never be controversial and never put themselves in a position where they will protect their team – basically 85% of hiring managers at the Fortune 500 (hey don’t get mad at me – I didn’t come up with the stat – ok, I did but it seems about right, right?).

4. The Super Model:  Have you ever noticed that most leaders are “pretty” people – not only that they’re Tall – abnormally tall and pretty combination?  Look around at your leadership – you see 3 things – the average heigth is above the national average, they don’t have adult acne and they have good hair.  There actually have been academic studies done on this concept – people want their leaders like they want their celebrities – good looking and tall.  Now this doesn’t make them less qualified – but it doesn’t make them more qualified either. And yes – I’m short with red hair – and only my youngest son thinks I’m good looking – and that’s only because he hasn’t learned how to be snarky yet!

5. The Tony Robbins-Stephen Covey-Wayne Dyer-Dr. Seuss:  This one drives me completely insane- it’s the manager who reads leadership books constantly and only speaks in leadership-quotes-I’ve-read-in-books speak.  You know – it’s gotta be a win-win, sharpen your saw, focus on our hedgehog, get that fly wheel going – kinda day! These are the people that don’t have an original thought in their head – but think their mashup of all the latest leadership crap somehow is an original master piece of their own.

Why Detroit Losing 25% of its Population is a Good Thing

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The recent census numbers are out and it would seem like the city of Detroit is a big loser – to the tune of over 200,000 people in the last 10 years.  The number drops the current population of Detroit to it’s lowest population since – 1910! (read more here)

I know I don’t usually think like most people, but I don’t see this as a negative.  Let’s face it, Michigan has been hit hard the past few years – it’s caused a ton of people to move out of state, move out of Detroit to find work.  One major way to bring an area back, is this unique type of transition that takes place within an economic environment that is almost “natural-selection-ish”.

With 250,000 fewer people to employ – it gives those who are in the area, better odds at finding a well paying  job.  Historically low property values, gives those who couldn’t afford it before a chance at ownership.  Empty buildings being torn down, gives the city a chance to start a new.  In a major way you get the feeling that history is giving Detroit another shot to start again.  It’s allowing us to spray off the dirt on the sidewalk out front of the shop in the morning, and begin a new day.

The numbers are extreme – the numbers tell a devastating story of a city – but they don’t tell it’s current, they don’t tell it’s future. If you were to come to Detroit today, you wouldn’t see a thriving city, but if you take a minute to really look, you see unlimited opportunity for someone who has vision.  A company with 10,000 employee could come into Detroit right now and set up it’s headquarters, and literally own the city.  Could you do that in New York, LA, Boston, Houston, Chicago, D.C.,Phoenix?  I’m not exaggerating – literally own the city.  Who’s your competition? GM? Ford? Chrysler?  Not really anymore – their workforces are shadows of what they were – and while they are all much more healthy now – they will never be the powers that they were.

Fast Company had a great article on Detroit last year: Demolishing Density in Detroit: Can Farming Save the Motor City? That looks at the concept of taking the city back to green spaces, back to it’s “roots” – literally – and starting all over.  Can you imagine a 10 square mile radius of farm land in Downtown Detroit? What would happen? Crime would disappear, small developments of housing would come back, small shops and eateries would slowly make it’s way back, little by little the city would start again.  Neat concept – that probably won’t happen, but a great vision of how to really turn around Detroit in a purposeful way.

Losing population isn’t always a bad thing – and it certainly isn’t a bad thing for Detroit at this point in the cities evolution.  Let’s get smaller, let’s get more competitive, let’s get back to being a city/state on the rise.

Recruiters and Telephone Calls

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Do we (recruiters) still need to make telephone calls?

I mean really it’s 2011 – we have text messaging, emails, Facebook, Twitter, etc. – hasn’t the telephone just become obsolete?  Does anyone actually use their cell phones to make actual phone calls anymore?

The New York Times had a very interesting article last week: Don’t Call Me, I Won’t Call You, in which they delve into this concept of whether the act of making a phone call has jumped the shark or not.  From the article:

“I remember when I was growing up, the rule was, ‘Don’t call anyone after 10 p.m.,’ ” Mr. Adler said. “Now the rule is, ‘Don’t call anyone. Ever.’ ”

Phone calls are rude. Intrusive. Awkward. “Thank you for noticing something that millions of people have failed to notice since the invention of the telephone until just now,” Judith Martin, a k a Miss Manners, said by way of opening our phone conversation. “I’ve been hammering away at this for decades. The telephone has a very rude propensity to interrupt people…

Even at work, where people once managed to look busy by wearing a headset or constantly parrying calls back and forth via a harried assistant, the offices are silent. The reasons are multifold. Nobody has assistants anymore to handle telecommunications. And in today’s nearly door-free workplaces, unless everyone is on the phone, calls are disruptive and, in a tight warren of cubicles, distressingly public. Does anyone want to hear me detail to the dentist the havoc six-year molars have wreaked on my daughter?

“When I walk around the office, nobody is on the phone,” said Jonathan Burnham, senior vice president and publisher at HarperCollins. The nature of the rare business call has also changed. “Phone calls used to be everything: serious, light, heavy, funny,” Mr. Burnham said. “But now they tend to be things that are very focused. And almost everyone e-mails first and asks, ‘Is it O.K. if I call?’ ”

Sound Familiar?

Now I could easily turn this into a generational issue, because for one it’s easy to do, but this isn’t a GenX vs. GenY issue.  This is a basic communication issue.  An understanding of what we do in our industry issue.  Whether your third party or corporate recruitment – we do the same thing – we search and find talent.  There are two basic ways to screen potential talent for fit for your organization – 1. Meet them in Person (no one would argue that this is the best way – but boy it’s expensive, if you are using it as your first-line screen); 2. Meet them over the phone (done in some form or another by 99.9% of recruiters).

There really isn’t anyway around this issue – we recruit, we make telephone calls.  If you don’t like to make telephone calls – if you believe what the New York Times article believes – you shouldn’t recruit.  It’s not an indictment on you, this just isn’t your gig.  Recruiters like to talk to people, to question people, to find out more about people – not a career best done by email and text messaging – we need to talk live to others.  That’s how we go to work. Doesn’t matter if you’re 21 or 61 – it’s how deliver great talent to our hiring managers. 

So, here’s a tip – if you’re in recruitment and you don’t like making phone calls, get out of recruitment, you will not be successful.  If your first choice of contacting someone isn’t picking up the phone and calling them, instead of sending them an email, when you have their phone number, get out of recruitment. If you’re thinking you want to recruit, and you don’t like making phone calls – take another path.  Recruiters make phone calls, that’s what we do.

The Dalai Lama Succession Plan

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Did you see – the Dalai Lama is resigning!  How would you like to be in charge of that succession plan?!

From the Economist:

AFTER six decades as the living emblem of Tibetans in exile from Chinese-ruled Tibet, the Dalai Lama prepared on March 14th to present his resignation from all “formal authority”…

This might seem untimely, given Tibet political predicament. Talks between the Chinese government and the Tibetan exiles are badly stalled. The Dalai Lama himself, though in good health, is now 75 years old.  The question of his succession is perennial, and thorny, when it comes between China and the exile government. Last week, Padma Choling, the Chinese-appointed governor of Tibet, made the dumbfounding assertion that the Dalai Lama must follow the tradition of reincarnation and cannot choose his successor…

The Dalai Lama expected resistance and he addressed that too. “I trust that gradually people will come to understand my intention, will support my decision and accordingly let it take effect,” he entreated. Even if he the Dalai Lama is ready for this move, most Tibetans are not. The Kashag may well reject his formal resignation. But he has made his intention clear.

I love this – for the simple fact – the Dalai Lama resigning – to try and move on at 75 years of age – isn’t really that dissimilar to every type of resignation/retirement of any star executive or leadership in every organization.  Here’s how it works in corporate America:

1. The company argues that timing couldn’t be worse, and implores the leadership to stay on “just a bit” longer – usually 1 more year.

2. The organization takes that next year disagreeing on who/how/what should be the plan for succession – without ever making a decision.

3. The person eventually just leaves, usually out of the  frustration of having worked an additional 3 years past his “resignation” with still no decision.

4. The organization hastily appoints an “interim” leader.

5. 6 months later they find out that the organization can survive and the “interim” tag is removed – and we start the cycle all over again.

Let’s face it – if the Tibetan people can move on past the Dalai Lama – your organization can move past your CEO of the last 20 years!

Do Young Workers Like Your Company?

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And, should you care?…

Seems like a simple enough question right?  In HR we want all workers to love us, young – fresh out of school, young – just starting families, a little less young – kids in school, even a little less young – kids going to college, empty nesters, etc., etc.  But what if they don’t like you, what if they are working for your company “begrudgingly”?  The Harvard Business Review asked a similar question recently – but it wasn’t about workers – it was about customers – Do Your Younger Customers Even Like Your Company? by Andrew McAfee.  McAfee was looking at the model of Financial related institutions – i.e., traditional banks, insurance, investment firms, etc. and found that most younger people really don’t like dealing with these types of institutions, primarily because of how they make them interact to do business with them:

There are two types of bad news here for the services providers. The first one, obviously, is that these customers don’t like dealing with these companies. They do so because they need bank accounts, insurance policies, and retirement savings, but it’s never a good sign when someone does business with you begrudgingly.

The second piece of bad news is that the digital native viewpoint is spreading. Older people are adopting it as they friend their kids on Facebook, read Kindle books, and use iPads. These experiences show them that Ike is no longer president and websites no longer have to stink. So over time, the dominant model is going to make sense to an ever-smaller proportion of customers.

Certain industries are classic in not really caring what certain populations of their customer base really think – I mean let’s face it, the money isn’t coming from their younger customers (right now) so why put your energy and resources there – they’ll all get old eventually and then they’ll be the customer we want!  You see the problem with that mentality is someone is going to figure it out – someone is going to go all Google (maybe even Google – can you imagine Bank of Google) and figure out to interact with this population and get what little money they have – and they’ll then have their money for life.

In HR companies face similar challenges.  We always here about the cool, hip places all the younger workers want to work, but we rarely here about where they don’t want to work, and how many companies struggle to get good talent – for the simple reason your senior leadership doesn’t care about younger workers.  That’s a problem.  It’s not a problem right now, it’s a problem 5-10 years from now, when all the workers who do like you – want to retire.  I get it – it’s tough – how do you become an employer of choice for a younger generation – when your company, your culture, your leadership really doesn’t want to change?

That’s your first challenge – getting your senior leadership to realize there is a need to change – mostly their perception – about the need to infuse some younger workers into your workforce.  But not just adding some younger workers – adding some younger workers who really want to work for your company – that would chose to work for your company versus anyone else – not because it’s the only job they were offered.  Talent wins.  If you aren’t getting it, if you aren’t winning the talent game, your company is slowly dying – and you don’t even see it – it’s like a slow progressing disease and one day you’ll come to work – 10 years from now and find your company is no longer competitive.

So – open your eyes old people – you do need young workers – and you need young workers who want to work at your company – that takes change – that take compromise – you’ll both be better for it.

Two Sides To Every Tale

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Being in Michigan – I’ve been hearing from everyone about the ESPN documentary “The Fab Five” that aired this past Sunday, regarding the 91-93 University of Michigan Basketball team. Mostly the people I’ve heard from loved it, thought it was great – I didn’t watch it – why? Michigan sucks!  I’m a State fan – I don’t like U of M – and I really could care less about the “Fab Five”.  That being said I loved Grant Hill’s reply in The New York Times to comments made about himself, his family and Duke basketball by Jalen Rose in the documentary. I can’t possibly paraphrase what Grant said any better, so from the article:

It was a sad and somewhat pathetic turn of events, therefore, to see friends narrating this interesting documentary about their moment in time and calling me a bitch and worse, calling all black players at Duke “Uncle Toms” and, to some degree, disparaging my parents for their education, work ethic and commitment to each other and to me. I should have guessed there was something regrettable in the documentary when I received a Twitter apology from Jalen before its premiere. I am aware Jalen has gone to some length to explain his remarks about my family in numerous interviews, so I believe he has some admiration for them.

In his garbled but sweeping comment that Duke recruits only “black players that were ‘Uncle Toms,’ ” Jalen seems to change the usual meaning of those very vitriolic words into his own meaning, i.e., blacks from two-parent, middle-class families. He leaves us all guessing exactly what he believes today.

I am beyond fortunate to have two parents who are still working well into their 60s. They received great educations and use them every day. My parents taught me a personal ethic I try to live by and pass on to my children.

I come from a strong legacy of black Americans. My namesake, Henry Hill, my father’s father, was a day laborer in Baltimore. He could not read or write until he was taught to do so by my grandmother. His first present to my dad was a set of encyclopedias, which I now have. He wanted his only child, my father, to have a good education, so he made numerous sacrifices to see that he got an education, including attending Yale…

…I caution my fabulous five friends to avoid stereotyping me and others they do not know in much the same way so many people stereotyped them back then for their appearance and swagger. I wish for you the restoration of the bond that made you friends, brothers and icons.

I am proud of my family. I am proud of my Duke championships and all my Duke teammates. And, I am proud I never lost a game against the Fab Five.

Class.  Unlike the Fab Five, Grant Hill, has always been extremely classy, and when thrown completely under the bus, he reacted with, class.   There is a huge lessons here my friends:

1. People tend to see the same situation in very different ways – it’s a fact of life.

2. You chose how you respond and react to those situations.

3. U of M sucks.

See – I’m just like Grant – Classy!

Don’t Believe Your Hype

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Seems like everyone today is building a brand, just the other day I started www.timsackett.com and you can’t believe how it’s changed my life – now I have to work on the weekends!   I think we in HR tend to have a lot to do with this employee-personal-branding thingy we have going on over the past couple of years.  In fact, I really think much of this got started when we started down this path of succession planning and performance management and began labeling employees things like “A Player”, “Key Contributer”, “Rock Star”, etc.   Before all these cute little labels came out (well, I guess their cute if you’re on the top side of those labels, I’m not sure you think their cute if your company has labeled you “Bottom Feeder” or “No-Po”) it was usually a conversation about meeting or exceeding performance, or needs improvement, etc.   Nobody was out building their brand under “Exceeds Performance”.

That was so 2005 – now every HR shop has to have their own creative labels  – and in the end all this has created is a bunch of employees who beginning to believe all this hype we keep piling on top to them.  Jeff Schmidt at Business Week had an article recently on the 12 signs you’ve started to buy into your press clippings as an employee. They are:

1. You Dismiss Questions (“Take My Word for it…” – you know that guy in the meeting – he doesn’t need to show you proof, he’s an “A” player)

2. You feel there’s no need for change. (A yeah, I created this beast – it doesn’t get any better!)

3. You quit asking questions. (Remember when you started out and you asked questions constantly – well, yeah, now you know everything, so you don’t need to do that.)

4. You dont’ reach out. (I mean what’s the point – so I can listen to someone elses lame ideas.)

5. You fall into a routine. (Look the executives know I’ll deliver, and they know I don’t work on Friday afternoons)

6. You look down at your peers. (Once you’re here – you might as well pack it in – and become a consultant.)

7. You lack self-awareness. (Like right now, while reading this, you don’t realize this is you! Some very talented high performing employees have this as their biggest career derailer.)

8. You quit pushing yourself. (I mean like what’s the use, these trolls I work with do half a what I do on their best day.)

9. You grow sloppy. (When small errors or mistakes start to creep into your work, and you deflect, you’re losing your focus.)

10.  You focus more on producing hype, then producing. (When you start to worry about who is going to see this project, instead of how this project will impact our organizaiton – you’re in trouble.)

11. You fixate on status. (Remember what use to keep you up at night, now it’s how to knock down someone else to get into that corner office.)

12. You become dismayed when something’s amiss. (When something goes wrong you can’t believe it, you’re speechless, you dont know what to do – the old you would have had an answer.)

Building brand is one thing – but once that brand is only a brand without substance, well you’ve reached a point of no return.  In the end performers will always prevail over the perso

Retention Fixes on a Shoestring Budget

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I love small and medium sized HR shops for a number of reasons, but none more than for the simple fact, smaller sized HR shops have to be creative.  My grandma grew up during the Great Depression and got real use to have nothing, so like many people during that time in history, they worked their butts off and made do with what they had, and came up with some really creative ways to get things done.   In retirement she loved eating out at restaurants, probably because she was forced to cook all those years because she couldn’t afford to go out, but in retirement she didn’t really have the money to do this as much as she wants.  To solve this problem (Great Depression people are real problem solvers!) she tinkered at home, cooking the dishes she liked the most from her favorite restaurants, until you couldn’t really tell the difference between hers and the restaurant.  I remember showing up at her place late one night with my younger brother and he was hungry, and grandma couldn’t wait to feed “boys” (she lived for that), and she asked him what he was hungry for (he was 12 at the time) – he told her “nachos”.  Now I was pretty sure she had no idea what nachos were, but she went to work and about 20 minutes later she came out with a plate of nachos stacked so high with melted cheese and ground beef and salsa and sour cream, etc. you would have thought she drove down to your favorite sports bar and brought it back!  15 years later – my little brother still talks about those nachos.

Creativity and small HR shops, remind me of grandma. 

Having worked in big HR shops the one thing that frustrated me most was sitting around in large meetings, trying to figure out how to “fix” retention – and listening to all the ways and how much money it was going to cost.  In the end I always came back to, if we just take all this money we are going to spend on the “fix” and just go out and hand to the employees, we probably won’t have a retention problem – but large HR shop folks don’t like to hear that!  So, for you small HR shop folks out there, with little or no money to spend on increasing your retention – I came up with a few ideas you might want to try before you go spend all that money on that recognition software and anniversary awards.

No Money Retention Fixes:

  1. Fire the manager with the lowest retention.  (You have the data, you know who is turning people over – your organization needs to send a message that managers, not HR, not the CEO are responsible for retaining talent.  This has to be the first step – your leaders have to have a clear understanding it is their job to retain, their employees – and they’ll be held accountable for it.)
  2. Measure it by Department, and post it publicly for all to see. (No, don’t just share it in meetings – put it up in the lobby, down the halls, everywhere.  Then just wait – it will almost change overnight – no one likes to be at the bottom of any list, and have everyone know it.)
  3. Fire your worst performers – then use that money to compensate your best employees more. (It’s a wash – your worst employees aren’t helping your productivity anyway, and your best will appreciate the increase, appreciate you noticing the bad people were taking away from the team, and they’ll give you more discretionary effort.  The result – same cost (actually less if you factor in benefits, taxes, etc.) more productivity, a little less headcount.
  4. Have your senior leadership talk about retention publicly, constantly. (That which gets measured will get changed, that which gets measured and has the eye of senior leadership will get changed much quicker!)
  5. Institute a “Save Strategy” for employees who want to leave. (Save Strategy? If an employee puts in their notice, have them go meet with your CEO and explain to her why they are leaving – you’ll be amazed at the results and how many people will change their minds. Some people just want to know you care – and sitting down for some one-on-one with the CEO, shows that a whole bunch.)

Lock Up Your Daughters

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An interesting thing is happening right now in the world – according to the United Nations there are far more Men than Women on the planet.  We know from our 8th grade social studies classes that this gender gap is especially prononouced in Asia, where there are roughly 100 Million more boys than girls.  Yeah – that’s 100 Million – about 1/3 the population of the United States – in just more Men.  Here in the United States, in fact in most western countries, we don’t really see or feel this because we actually have more females than males – primarily because the mortality rate for men is higher than women.  Newsweek has a good article on this subject: Men Without Women – The Ominous Rise of Asia’s Bachelor Generation, from the article:

In China today, according to American Enterprise Institute demographer Nicholas Eberstadt, there are about 123 male children for every 100 females up to the age of 4, a far higher imbalance than 50 years ago, when the figure was 106. In Jiangxi, Guangdong, Hainan, and Anhui provinces, baby boys outnumber baby girls by 30 percent or more. This means that by the time today’s Chinese newborns reach adulthood, there will be a chronic shortage of potential spouses. According to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, one in five young men will be brideless. Within the age group 20 to 39, there will be 22 million more men than women. Imagine 10 cities the size of Houston populated exclusively by young males.

The question left open by economists is what the consequences will be of such a large surplus of young men. History offers a disquieting answer. According to the German scholar Gunnar Heinsohn, European imperial expansion after 1500 was the result of a male “youth bulge.” Japan’s imperial expansion after 1914 was the result of a similar youth bulge, Heinsohn argues. During the Cold War, it was youth-bulge countries—Algeria, El Salvador, and Lebanon—that saw the worst civil wars and revolutions. Heinsohn has also linked the recent rise of Islamist extremism in countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan to an Islamic youth bulge. Political scientists Valerie Hudson and Andrea den Boer warn that China and India could be the next countries to overdose on testosterone.

From a western perspective, clearly some concern to pause and see if we have learned from our past.  China is a raging economic power, and growing daily – and oh by the way, it seems like they’ve filled their pipeline with young male workers for the next two decades at minimum to fuel this growth.  I won’t even get into the productivity issue of not having women in their life to take their minds of work…(oh, can’t wait for the Girls of HR to get all worked up over that comment!) 

Here is my question:  What are the HR implications to this demographic shift?

Here’s what I think HR doesn’t need:

  •  Gender Sensitivity Training.  (Don’t act like you didn’t think of that first off – but stop it – we aren’t talking about a couple of sophmoric boys doing dumb stuff.  We are talking about 100s of Millions of males over females in the workforce.  Cats and dogs living together – mass hysteria – Ghost Buster kind of stuff – sensitivity training is what your organization is looking for!)
  • More focus on Diversity. (What!?  Listen: We need focus on Diversity, but it has to be more than just color – Gender needs to become a major focus of your diversity program – yesterday!)
  • More turning a Blind-eye to lack of Female Leadership. (Yes you do.  Your organization is 60% female, and your top two level of leadership are 30% Female – and you are keeping it that way.  Specific gender based leadership succession plans need to be a part of your strategy.)

Here’s what I think HR needs:

  • A helmet – Holy crap – in an economy that isn’t stopping from going completely global, this will impact every company in the US and much of our policy making over the next 20-30 years.  Get involved and understand what is being proposed “on your behalf” from a government standpoint.
  • I think US companies can show our Asian counterparts – that we value the contributions of our female workforce and leaders, and we expect the same.  I want to honor each others cultures – but “Gendercide” isn’t one we should stand by and be willing to let happen. 
  • Prepare our leadership for this – they aren’t concerned about this – they have Ops issues, and shrinking margins, etc.  This will impact your business, and HR can help make sure your organizaiton is prepared.