HR Law of Diminishing Returns

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I was talking to friend recently about an interview process they were going through – I’ll take you through the steps:

  1. First contact – came in the form of a referral – my friend was on the phone with a person from their organization – who referred my friend to their HR department.
  2. Second contact – Recruiter from the organization called my friend up to see if he might have some interest in a position they have open (basic phone screen)
  3. Third contact – next call came from another person in recruiting, doing a more in depth phone screen – basically – so-they-are-interested-in-the-position-but-are-we-interested-in-them
  4. Fourth contact – online behavioral assessment, personality type profiling, etc.
  5. First Interview- basic phone screen with potential hiring manager – your online assessments came back and you aren’t completely crazy, so we would like you to move on.  This call is really for hiring manager to see if there is somewhat of a personality match.
  6. Second Interview – phone interview with Hiring Manager’s boss – if all goes well – we want to do an in-person personality assessment.
  7. Third Interview and in-person profiling – on sight at organization, doing some profiling and finally meeting face-to-face with hiring manager and few others from department
  8. Fifth Contact – interview debrief, some more clarifying questions – everything seems to be progressing nicely.  Then he’s told, we should be getting back to you within 2-3 weeks with an answer.

For the most part nothing surprises me about this interview process – actually pretty average from a corporate standpoint.  The entire process to get to #8 took about 3 weeks – assuming the decision will take another 3 weeks – you have 6 weeks invested into finding a mid-manage level candidate.  The problem with this being normal – is that’s the type of candidate you’re going to get – normal.  My friend is an exceptional talent, wasn’t looking, but through a referral was interested enough to engage this companies process.  As soon as he heard it would take 2-3 weeks to have a decision – he made up his mind that he was no longer interested.  His feeling, why should it take 2-3 weeks more for you to make up your mind – after all those steps – you either know you want the person, or you know you don’t.

I believe we in HR are great at setting up processes to the point we get diminishing returns on whatever it is we are trying to accomplish.  Thought being: “well if one assessment is good, two must be better and if two is better, three must be tremendous” – but after a while more isn’t better.  When I was at Applebee’s we have a tremendous performance management process in place. Twice a year we (the leadership teams across the country) would sit down and specifically talk about each management level person we had, and how they were performing to set of competencies we had.  We would force rank, and determine how to help develop people to move up within the rankings – or did we have someone that just needed to be off the bus (because development wasn’t working).

I made one small change to this process – which usually would take an entire day or more to complete.  We could only talk about an individual for 10 minutes, max. Why 10 minutes? Because once you talk about someone for more than 10 minutes – they turn into a piece of garabage!  They could be #1 on your list, your best performer – and by minute 11 – they turned into someone who couldn’t tie their shoes and chew gum – The HR Law of Diminishing Returns. Too much of something doesn’t give you better – just gives you more – and many times more isn’t what you need.  HR Pros – don’t add, just to add – add only if it’s going to get you a better result, faster.

Hiring, Culture and the Bookmobile

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In HR we talk a lot about “hiring for culture” – it’s a nice, professional way to say, we want to hire people who “fit” in with the rest of us.  We try and define our culture constantly – but usually end up with a list of every great quality we wish our employees had and our new employees “will” have before they can get hired.  Then we start mixing our new “perfect” employees with our old “broken” employees and we don’t understand what went wrong with our “culture”.   It’s a pretty simple concept, that most HR Pros don’t get, and leadership ignores – you can’t change culture by hiring some people to mix in with the old people. 

Changing culture, by changing people, only works (and maybe not even than) if you do everyone at one time – walk the entire staff out at 5pm on Tuesday (including yourself) and the new team shows up on Wednesday morning.  It’s like getting rid of cancer – you don’t just cut out one piece, you cut out the whole thing – or it grows back.   I’ve seen this in play – I’ve watched a line leader replace every single member of his team (12 in total) over a 2 year period – and he ended up with the exact same culture. Why? Because as a new member is brought in, they pick up the culture beginning the moment they step in the doors – so, even though you replaced everyone – they were still infected by those who were still left, and then went on to infect the new ones that came in. 

So, how do you change culture?  The easy answer is little by little, over a very long time – in most cases.  If your leadership wants to change your culture fast – you have a couple of options: 1. Quit (always an option); 2. Create a major event that is completely outside the normal culture.  Sounds easy, right!?!  Companies that have major cultural shifts in short period usually gain this by doing something totally out of your norm – major layoffs, major compensation design changes (think salaried to hourly, or bonus to commission) – something changes that disrupts the culture so much – change has to result.  The problem with this, is you really can’t design the new culture – it’s just going to happen, and what you end up with is a new culture – just not maybe the one you want!

My solution – I do it slowly over time – and I use the Bookmobile method.  I want a culture where people work hard, and weren’t given a lot – because I think they appreciate stuff more.  So, I have one selection criteria I use during the interview process to “pre-select” for the culture I want.  I ask 1 question: “How many times, growing up, did you go to the Bookmobile?”  There are really only 2 answers to this question: 1. I never went to the bookmobile, because they didn’t have that in my area (suburban rich kids, mommy took them to the library in their SUV); or 2. I went all the time, because when it came to the neighborhood, all the kids showed up.  In the end I want Bookmobile People – they got their education off a bus, that showed up in their neighborhood, and allowed you to take a book and trusted you would bring it back. 

Bookmobile people are the culture I want: Willing to do a little more to get their education, you can trust them (or the Bookmobile lady wouldn’t let them get anymore books) and no one’s mom drove them to the Bookmobile – they had to have their own initiative if they wanted to read.  So, little by little I’m building a Bookmobile Culture.

Wanting More, For Someone Else

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You know what?  Being a HR Pro isn’t tough, being a Dad/parent is tough!  But, sometimes they seem to be very similar jobs.

I was reminded this weekend that many times in life, you want more for your kids/employees, than they might want for themselves.  We run into that frequently as HR Pros – you sit through 100’s if not 1000’s, performance management reviews, and in many of those, the conversation is centered around asking the employee -“Well, what do you want out of your career?”  The smart ones usually tell you what you want to here, the not-so-smart ones will tell you something totally off the wall – but either way, you end up feeling like you’re doing the parenting!

This weekend I was taught a lesson that I’ve taught many people in my career.  The usual scenario is me sitting with an executive or hiring manager, explaining to them – there is nothing we can do to change this employee, if they are not willing to change this for themselves first.  Seems simple, right!?  We can offer the best tools, the best teachers and mentors, send them away to great conferences – and nothing happens, it’s the same old employee that we had before.  We (HR, leadership, etc.) keep trying to change the individual, but the individual hasn’t decided, yet, that they are willing to change – in a nut shell – this is Performance Management – and there is a ton of performance management in Parenting!

For me, this is about wanting to turn one of my sons into something they are either not, or are not yet ready to become.  I can yell and push and plead and do everything my Dad probably did to me – but if he hasn’t made up his mind to change, it’s just not going to happen.  It’s funny how we all teach and train things that we haven’t really experienced or understand.  It’s in our DNA to want more for those we care about most. If you are a great leader/HR Pro and you care about your employees, you innately want them to reach their highest potential – it’s a natural feeling.  The hardest part is getting to the point where you understand that no matter how much you want your employee to change for the better – they have to want to change, first, before any step forward will take place.  The hardest thing to do as a leader/parent is to wait for this to happen.

So, don’t stop giving them the opportunity – because you don’t know when the light will come on, when the desire to change will take over – it could happen at any time.  We set the table, we invite them to eat – then they either come and eat or they don’t.  The next day, we set the table again – and again – and again.  One of my favorite quotes of all time comes from Leo Buscaglia (who is a wonderful writer and teacher), Leo says: “We don’t love to be love in return, we love to love.”   As HR Pros/Leaders/Parents – I think Leo has it right – we don’t try and make those we care about better, for something we are going to get in return, we try and make them better (and continue to try) for the simple reason, it’s the right thing to do.  

The hard part is we know, we see the potential – usually because, we didn’t reach that potential ourselves, and through that experience, we want to make sure others don’t miss their opportunity.  So, we will head back to the gym, a little smarter, a little wiser and, yeah, I’ll probably still yell a little too much…

HR and Snow Days

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Look I get it – I have 3 sons – Snow Days are a big deal…if you’re 10!   So, if you’re an HR Pro, right about this time tomorrow, you’re going to feel like you have an entire organization full of 10 year olds – as we begin to see the first signs of Snowmagedon Part II.   I understand people freaking out, that is, if you live in some place south of the Mason-Dixon line, and you’ve never seen snow before – but I live in Michigan – it snows here – starts around Halloween and ends around Easter.  What I don’t understand is anyone that lives north of, let’s say, Chicago, even blinking an eye at a snow storm coming.  Let it snow, clear your driveway and get your butt to work.

It’s not a difficult concept – no I don’t want you to drive to a client if the roads are dangerous, and no I don’t want you to drive to work if the roads are dangerous, and no I don’t want you to run around the office with scissors and your shoes untied!  But I do expect, we’ll all be adults – looks like there’s going to be a lot of snow tomorrow -ok, how about packing some work to do from home – or just plan on watching Lifetime all day, because I completely understand you missing the 3 days of warning that the snow was coming!

Snow Days are the kind of crap that drives HR and Leadership completely insane!  Why is it, the CEO finds his way into the office, driving his Lexus sedan, but Perry in IT just can’t seem to get his 4X4Chevy Tahoe out of the garage?   If you want a day off that damn bad, take a day off – but don’t insult the intelligence of all those who found a way to come in.   Be sensible, give your local snow plows some time to clear roads, give yourself extra time to get to work – but at the very least give it a shot – then when you get stuck, take a picture with your phone and send it to your boss – they’ll appreciate the effort!

If You Rake Sh*t, It’s Going To Smell

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I worked with a great Operations partner for a number of years who was fond of saying:

“If you rake sh*t it’s gonna smell.”

This was almost always said about something HR was doing – usually an investigation, and usually an investigation that really was going to go no where.  He was basically trying to say, “why?” “Why would you look into that when you know it happened, you know the result, and at this point there is nothing that can come from it.” “So, why?”  We in HR tend to do a lot of this – we rake sh*t.  I know why, but if I admit why, HR folks tend to get a little upset over the answer, because it hits a little to close to home (job justification).

Let me give you an example of how we/HR might rake some sh*t: As part of a sexual harassment investigation, that is completely legitimate, you find out some information about a director who previously had a relationship with a subordinate.  Following me so far. Seems like stuff we HR types do everyday – follow the white rabbit, see how far this hole goes down, right?  The part that’s missing, is this supposed relationship took place 3-4 years ago, and has been done for 3-4 years, the director is a great performer and has no black marks on their record.  So, what do you do?  I can tell you from my experience, too often, the HR pros want to start raking this one around.  They bring in the director, they bring the other party – both of which have moved on 3-4 years ago, but somehow in HR we want to right the wrongs -no matter what.

Is what happened 3-4 years ago wrong? Yes, without a doubt. Is investigating this wrong, now, what’s best for your organizaiton? No, it’s just raking sh*t.  What should we do when we find out about stuff like this?  You make the powers that be aware (from my experience they will already be aware – you were the only one that isn’t) and you let them know, you’re not planning to do anything about this, unless they would like you to follow up further.  They’ll thank you and it will never be talked about again.

In HR we work everyday to try and make the right things happen, and stop the bad things from happening – that’s what we do. Sometimes we miss one, and it comes up and let’s us know it.  Our pride gets the best of us and we want to make someone pay for a rule that was broken long ago.  Am I saying if you find out about something after-the-fact, that you shouldn’t do something about it? Absolutely not – you should.  What I’m saying is, in HR interpretation becomes a major skill you better get comfortable with, especially if you want operations to view you as a “valuable” business partner.  There will be times to rake and times to leave it lie, how you handle this goes a long way to how great of an HR Pro you will be.

“We” Drive Employee Engagement

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Rudy Karsan, co-founder and CEO of Kenexa, has a new book out which he helped co-author titled: We: How To Increase Performance and Profits Through Full Engagement, which speaks to, obviously from the title, employee engagement and how to get your employees engaged “fully”.  What I like about this book, apart from other HR employee engagement books, is that Karsan and his co-author, Kevin Kruse, look at the engagement from both sides.  From the book:

When unlocking the secret to an engaged workforce, many people assume that an organization owns the single key—that it’s up to leadership to find and turn the key. Many ask, “What can Eva do to better engage the workers at her location?” or, “Acme needs to address their issues around trust and transparency to get their employees better engaged.” Indeed, the role of leaders is essential. But the We approach to full engagement acknowledges equally the critical role of the worker—the individual. Employees’ engagement levels may be limited by the fact that they just don’t fit with the company culture. Or, they may be in the wrong career, or the wrong kind of company. Quality leadership alone isn’t enough to unlock engagement. You need a second key. You hold the second key.

Most HR shops and leadership teams spend so much time focusing on “what can we do, to get our employees engaged”.  I think this is primarily because, this is what the feel they can “control” in that employee/employer “relationship”.  We tend to give up on the other side, feeling that there is nothing we can do about the employee side of this equation.  But there is – give your employees a gift…

“Oh, wait, Tim, we’ve given our employees so many gifts, my executives would freak if I told them we need to give them one more gift!” “What are you talking about anyway – another polo shirt, a portfolio with our logo embossed, a coffee mug, new name badges – what!?”  I’m talking about the gift of choice.  In HR we control the talent level, and in many ways, the engagement level of the talent we bring into organizations.  Many people we have working for us are choosing, not to be engaged.  No matter how hard we try, and how many team building activities, new projects, new technologies and pat-on-the-backs we give, they just don’t feel it’s important enough for their career to be engaged with us as an employer. 

So, we have one last gift to give – choice.  You can choose to be engaged with us, our team, our goals…or you can choose to leave.  It has to be one or the other – a third option is not available.  In the best job market, where the employees and candidates have an edge, I can still find great people, who want to work for my organization and be engaged.  It’s not an option to hold onto individuals who are not willing to try and be engaged, when you and your organization are doing all you can, with the resources you have, to be keep your employees engaged.

 

 

What Are You Really Showing Your Candidates?

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A couple of weeks ago, we had a house guest for a week – Mr. Ikemoto. Ikemoto is part of my oldest son’s Japanese exchange program at school. He’s not a student, but one of the chaperons who came to the U.S. with 10 Japanese students.  Ikemoto is an Assistant Principal and former basketball coach, has twin teenagers who are both very athletic, and liked to drink beer with at night watching college basketball – so he fit into the Sackett household right away.  Also, Ikemoto spoke very little English, but I spoke less Japanese, so there was a lot of basic communication going on.

Funny thing happens when you have a total stranger come stay with you (and one that has limited understanding of our language and culture), you do things you probably wouldn’t normally do.  For the most part, the things you do out of the normal are for the benefit of your guest, to make a positive impression.  Like many (most) American families with teenagers, we don’t do a big breakfast – it’s Poptarts, bagel, Diet Mt. Dew for Dad, etc. and out the door to school and work.  As little talking as possible while SportsCenter plays in the background. With Ikemoto, we did things a bit differently – for 6 straight days I got up 45 minutes before everyone and made a hot breakfast and set up a breakfast buffet on the island in the kitchen!  The first morning my kids came down and looked around like somehow they’d been transported into another family from the 1950’s.  My wife would take Ikemoto’s clothes each day after we left and wash them and leave them folded on his bed.  We cooked full dinners (with fresh vegetables and fresh fruit!) and sat down as a family. Let me tell you – it was exhausting being a “normal” family!

This entire experience got me to really think about the facades we put on each and every day in our professional lives in HR and Recruiting.  HR Pros are the best in driving an organizations brand and culture – or should I say the brand and culture that our executives wish we had!  Too many times in HR we bring in great candidates and attempt to show them the culture we are attempting to create – but probably not quite there yet.  We have them meet our most positive hiring managers and peers, we keep them away from our creepy people and zombies.  We talk about every single positive feature we have to offer, and never bring up our struggles.  We take them to the best restaurants for lunch and put them up in great hotels. Does it sound familiar?

Then we are shocked when we land the great candidate, and they don’t work out, or they struggle to fit in.  Your executives talk about how they aren’t one of “our kind” and we need to select “better”.   I’m not telling you to go out and show each candidate everyone of your hickeys, but great HR Pros understand the value to delivering a balanced and realistic picture.  “Hey, Mary, we love you and we want you to come run our department, but you should know we have one executive that isn’t happy with some recent organizational changes, and you might have to go to battle with her right off the bat.  Maybe worth you asking some questions to this person when you get some time with them, about how they feel about this.”  Great HR Pros know the only true “great” candidates aren’t the ones you land, they’re the ones you keep. 

Believe me, you can still make a great impression to candidates without throwing the dog and pony show for every candidate, and your organization will benefit from the transparency.

That Fine Line

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I think like everyone, I want to be a good leader.  I think like any leader, the definition of good is dependent on who is listening to your message, and what they take away from that message.  Leaders are constantly asked to walk a fine line – do what is right for the business and do what is right for our employees.  Most of you know, these two things don’t go in opposite directions, but run parallel in the same direction (although many times, our employees don’t feel they are traveling in the same direction).  It’s not one or the other – business vs. employees – it’s both.  You need the health of both groups, one can’t live without the other – although – sometimes both sides think that one can live without the other.

In my 20 years of professional background, I think what I’ve learned from watching both good and bad leaders is that your ability to walk that fine line successfully – determines your fate.  It’s a very small margin for error.   You must be fair, consistent and above all communicate in an up front, transparent way, when you can.   Before I was put into a leader position – I didn’t get this fine line.  I would be frustrated with my leaders – why didn’t they support us more, why did they seemingly always support the business?  I vowed, when I was a leader, I’d be that person they didn’t have the courage to be.  It’s funny how careers have a way of giving you what you ask for!

The best HR leader I ever worked for gave me some advice, and frequently I reach back for it.  He said, “Tim, employees will never throw you a party when you take something away.  But if it is the right thing to do, then you have to do it.  Because they will throw you a going away party when you get fired for not doing the right thing.”  He wanted to know if I wanted to be the kind of leader that employees wanted to throw a party for, or a kind of leader that didn’t want employees to throw a party for.   I think, I can do without the party.

Life Lessons and Riding the School Bus

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I read a very funny quote today from a comedian, Jenny Johnson, which she said

“If you rode the school bus as a kid, your parents hated you.”

It made me laugh out loud, for two reasons: 1. I rode the bus or walked or had to arrive at school an hour early because that was when my Dad was leaving and if I wanted a ride that was going to be it.  Nothing like sitting at school talking to the janitor because he was the only other person to arrive an hour before school started.  Luckily for me, he was nice enough to open the doors and not make me stand outside in the cold.  Lucky for my parents he wasn’t a pedophile! 2. My kids now make my wife and I feel like we must be the worst parents in the world in those rare occasions that they have to ride the bus.  I know I’m doing a disservice to my sons by giving them this ride – but I can’t stop it, it’s some American ideal that gets stuck in my head about making my kids life better than my life, and somehow I’ve justified that by giving them a ride to school their life is better than mine!

When I look back it, riding the bus did suck – you usually had to deal with those kids who parents truly did hate them.  Every bully in the world rode the bus – let’s face it their parents weren’t giving them a ride, so you had to deal with that (me being small and red-headed probably had to deal with it more than most).  You also got to learn most of life lessons on the bus – you found out about Santa before everyone else, you found out how babies got made before everyone else, you found out about that innocent kid stuff that makes kids, kids before you probably should have.  But let’s face it, the bus kids were tough – you had to get up earlier, stand out in the cold, get home later and take a beating after the ride home, just so you had something to look forward to the next day!

You know as HR Pros we tend also not to let our employees “ride the bus”.   We always look for an easier way for them to do their work, to balance their work and home, to do as little as possible to get the job done.  In a way, too many of us, are turning our organizations and our employees into the kids who had their Mom’s pick them up from school.  I’m not saying go be hard on your employees – but as a profession we might be better off to be a little less concerned with how comfortable everyone is, and a little more concerned with how well everybody is performing.

Too many HR Pros (and HR shops for that matter) tend to act as “parents” to the employees, not letting them learn from their mistakes, but trying to preempt every mistake before it’s made – either through extensive processes or overly done performance management systems.  We justify this by saying we are just “protecting” our organizations – but in the end we aren’t really making our employees or organizations “tougher” or preparing them to handle the hard times we all must face professionally.  It’ll be alright – they might not like it 100%, but in the end they’ll be better for it.

Hello world!

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I was talking to my wife the other night, you might know her better as – Hall of Fame Volleyball player from University of Wyoming, Kim Smith-Sackett (she loves when I point that out!), trying to figure out why on earth would I start a blog.  I already have a bi-monthly post over at the awesomely wicked HR blog, Fistful of Talent, I can blog any day I want at my companies blog Talent 911 since I’m the administrator – So why The Tim Sackett Project? 

Besides the obvious Narcissim, I really think it comes from my enjoyment of writing and probably more specifically about attempting to make people laugh with my writing – primary word being “attempt”.  I think professionally I tend to deliver HR different than most HR people and it seems to have worked for me.  Blogging allows me to get those ideas out to other HR Pros and we can learn and debate with each other – the HR Pros I’ve ran into blogging have stretched my thinking in HR farther than I knew was possible – it’s a great activity to develop yourself.

Beyond professionally, I have a family that makes me laugh every day – 3 sons (14, 12 and 7) and a great wife – and a bunch of completely insane family members all over the country that all give me endless stories – and many that I want to share.  So, here it goes – Don’t worry this is going to be Amazing!